


The Paradox of Free Will

by Arlatius (Xratis)



Series: The Paradox of Freewill [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Erratic Updates, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Monsterphobia, Mute Frisk, Platonic Relationships, Post-Pacifist Route, Post-Undertale Genocide Route, Reader Is Not Frisk, The Overground (Undertale), The Underground (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-31 16:33:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 36,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6477706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xratis/pseuds/Arlatius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The paradox of freewill states that if an omnipotent being could exist, one who knew the past present and future, that freewill could not. The existence of an omnipotent all knowing being would determine that all choices and decisions were predestined and no matter how autonomous you may feel you are you truly are a puppet to fate. </p><p>After the monsters were freed from the underground you had been plagued with strange dreams, light headedness, nosebleeds that bled black goo, a voice you can't understand reverberating through your head. You have knowledge of things you shouldn't know. Haunting probably wasn't the right word for it. It felt more like only half of your body was being possessed by an intruder.<br/>The paradox of freewill states that if an omnipotent being could exist, one that knew the past present and future, that freewill could not.<br/>W.D. Gaster was the omnipotent being in this equation.<br/>And you weren't satisfied being a puppet anymore.<br/> <br/>Summary/Title changed 3/9/17<br/>Previously "How to Live on The Surface in X Easy Steps"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Step One: Never Sleep on Public Transport

The sudden change in temperature was embraced and appreciated and for the first time that day things were just a little bit better. It was appallingly cold outside, which was absurd. It was at least a solid seventy on Sunday, but suddenly it’s back to the wintertime twenty? Whose idea was that? You hadn’t expected it, either. It was warm that morning. You hadn’t grabbed a coat on your way out, you had no reason to after all, and so you were left shaking to your very core.

As the door shut behind you you buried your nose further into your scarf and glanced around the restaurant you had run into. All eyes were on you, monsters looking up and then quickly turning away when you caught their eye. From a ten second sweep it looked like you were the only human in the place. Your face burned as you suddenly felt self conscious with so many eyes looking so intently at you. You retreated further into your scarf.

It was a warm place, both in temperature and atmosphere. The walls were all colored in a deep red that mixed well with the brown bar, this bar had the appearance of what you would imagine if you could see heat.

And then you actually saw heat.

It was a fire in the form of a man wearing a vest and wiping down the bar top. You couldn’t stop yourself from thinking about how his clothing wasn’t on fire, but you decided that it would probably be offensive to ask that. He was wiping down the table top he stood behind. You shook your head and walked towards the bar holding the strap of your bag in both hands. “Um, excuse me...” You spoke to him across the bar. You didn’t take a seat, when he turned his head upwards you tighten your grip on the bag strap. He seemed taken aback for a moment, a quiet “Ah.” from wherever his mouth or what the fire equivalent would be just barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling of the flames.

You thought that maybe there weren’t many human customers that stopped by his bar, after all there were only monsters here as of present. Thinking about it you didn’t see many humans out on the streets as you walked here, actually, did you see any at all? Maybe this was a monster neighborhood? You stopped your thoughts, focus, you had to focus and not get distracted. He readjusted himself and stood straight moving the rag he was using to clean the bar off the counter. “Ah, yes, how can I help you?” He took out a notepad and pen, but you waved your hand.

“No, I’m not ordering anything. I was wondering if you could tell me where I am?” You slowly slid onto the bar stool closest to you. “I fell asleep on the train and I think it changed routes. So I ended up here and I don’t know my way back.” He put his pad back into the deep pocket on his apron and nodded as you spoke.

“I see. This is Delen Aisle, last stop on the V train.”

You leaned forward towards him. “The V train? Jeez... Ah, um, do you know how to get to Roosevelt Avenue from here then?”

The bartender shook his head. “All uptown bound trains are suspended past 42nd Street.”

“No way, are you serious? What could have caused something like that.”

“I hear it was because of a major investigation.”

You balled your fists in the hem of your shirt and gnawed at your lip. How were you supposed to get home? You obviously couldn’t walk, you’d get mugged or collapse before you’re even out of Delen and you didn’t have your bus pass with you since you hadn’t needed to take the bus on your way out that morning.

“Would you like me to call a taxi?”

You jumped at his voice and looked back up at him. “No, I don’t have any money to pay for it.”

“Poor kid. How’re you gonna get home?” It was a new voice, a voice to your right. You looked over at the speaker, a short skeleton with pinpricks of white light in his eye sockets and a bizarrely round figure for someone with no flesh or fat. He had bags under his eye sockets and you fought the urge to contemplate just how that happened. He was grinning widely, but you figured that it was probably his default expression. He was a skeleton afterall.

“I don’t know.” You really didn’t have any options. How were you supposed to get home? The stars were aligned, but instead of bringing you good luck they struck you over and over again with misfortune. You could practically feel the stress aging you. “I...”

The skeleton reached over and pat your back reassuringly. “Poor kid. Hey, Grillby, get this kid a burger. Put it on my tab.”

You looked over at him in surprise. How... kind. The man made of fire (Grillby?) nodded, turning and walking away through the back door. You looked at the skeleton shaking your head and waving your hands. “Oh, no you really don’t have to do that.”

He smiled at you, smiled more, and leaned against the bar resting his cheek bone in his hand. “Nah, it’s okay.” He said. “It looks like you’ve had a rough day.”

Your eyes dropped down to the countertop and you smiled at the floor. “Well, thank you then.” Grillby set the burger down in front of you, you never were one for eating when you were this distressed but the smell of grease was really appetizing. You had skipped lunch during work, your coworker had asked you to cover his shift when a sudden family emergency came up so you worked and served tables all day smelling food and yet never getting to eat. Your mouth was watering and your stomach grumbled when the burger was put in front of you and the skeleton laughed next to you and slid the ketchup in your direction.

“Here you are.” Grillby nodded as he placed the plate in front of you. You nodded and thanked him as you took a bite into the burger.

“Where did you say you lived again?” The skeleton asked as he bit his own burger. Grillby looked at you too. Honestly, in all of your time in the world you never expected complete strangers to be so caring. Humans were so egocentric. Grillby and the skeleton seemed to really want to help you, if it were a bar full of humans you probably would have been more cautious to be sure. But the monsters here were very caring, kind. You briefly thought that such a long time being trapped together underground with the same goal would definitely bring people together, but still this kind of concern took you by surprise.

“Teq Heights.”

The skeleton sighed a slow “Ah...” and rolled his neck to look at Grillby. “You’re pretty lost, aren’t you?” Grillby tilted his head slightly back to you and then back to the skeleton.

“Yeah, I am. I don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s too far to walk and I don’t drive, I have no money for a cab or my bus pass, I really...” The skeleton hummed and drummed his fingers against the countertop. Grillby looked at you and nodded along as you spoke, truly you felt like the main character of a bad fanfiction complaining to the bartender and a kind stranger. You sighed deeply in despair.

Grillby reached over and took your plate, without noticing you had finished the burger and the fries. You thanked him and mentioned it was very good and he nodded in a silent thanks.

“Hm... Okay, I wanna help you.” You looked over at the skeleton. “I'll get you back home.” He pushed himself off the stool and walked towards the door. At the door he looked over his shoulder at you. You looked around and slid off the stool, you looked at Grillby and thanked him again before grabbing your bag and following the skeleton outside the bar.

It felt even colder out after being in such a warm place. Just the breeze that blew in as he held the door open for you sent chills up your spine, and you were already rubbing your arms before you even got outside. You missed the warmth of the bar, you missed the warmth of Grillby standing in front of you. God, it was fucking cold.

The door shut behind you, and the skeleton looked at you. You were so focused trying to take as much advantage as possible of your scarf that you didn’t hear the sound of a zipper.

You didn’t notice until a heavy coat was draped over your shoulders that he had taken off his jacket. You immediately retracted into the coat, it was soft, it was warm, and it was huge on you. You looked up from him from under the hood. “Are you sure? It’s really windy and I don’t want you to get cold, you’re already helping me so much.”

The skeleton shook his head and raised a hand, “Nah, it’s fine. The wind doesn’t bother me, it goes right through me afterall.”

You stopped in your tracks and looked back at him. That awful pun made you feel some type of way. You decided that after some reflection, that you wouldn’t say anything about puns. He was helping you a lot, so he had earned some free range on bad jokes that made you want to curl up and freeze to death. He grinned at you waiting for a laugh. You pointedly did not laugh.

“Heheh. Didn’t do it for ya, huh? That’s fine, I gotta skele-TON more. Come on,” He reached a hand behind him. You took it. “I know a shortcut.”

And then you were home. Somehow. You decided not to dwell on it for too long. It probably wasn’t good for your health. You felt a bit dizzy from whatever had just happened to get you from point A to point B. But it worked. It took a moment to grasp your surroundings properly again, but when you saw your front door you perked up and breathed a laugh of relief.

“Oh thank God, thank you so much, I was so worried, really thank you.”

He grinned at you. “It’s no problem, don’t worry about it. Looked like you were having a rough time, right?”

You nodded and looked back at your door then back to him. “Really, thank you so much. Ah! I don’t even have your name, do I?” You looked at him with a tilted head. His eyes widened a bit, almost as if he was surprised. “Oh. Yeah, I’m Sans. Sans the Skeleton.”

You smiled and introduced yourself.

You two stood in silence for a brief moment before Sans mentioned that he had to go home and put his brother to bed. He did that something again and was gone somehow. You really didn’t want to think about it too much.

It wasn't until your door was shut behind you that you realized you still had his coat.


	2. Step Two: Never Voice your Thoughts Unless you're Looking for a Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone wants to come by and talk to me about this fic or undertale in general you can come and drop by my tumblr arlatius-art.tumblr.com and send me a message i love making fandom friends !!

In a cruel twist of ironic fate the next day was far too hot for your liking. In the morning before you were fully coherent you briefly pondered who you should call to complain to, and in your delirious state no conclusion was reached and so the idea of writing a strongly worded email to the literal weather was still resting in the back of your mind.

You had worn his coat, Sans’ coat, that day. You felt strange in it, it was the jacket of a total stranger who left it on accident but you really had no better way to carry it around all day. You planned to give it back to him but had no way to contact him. So you decided that after work you would go back to Grillby’s and ask Grillby to give the coat back to him. Granted this was a wild guess that Sans was a regular patron, sure, but he knew Grillby’s name so that probably counted for something. And this time you actually checked the subway schedule to make sure you had a way home. 

And so, with that goal in mind and the fact that Grillby’s is so far away from where you live, you decided to bring the coat with you all day. You immediately regretted that decision.

Your job was nine stops away on the E train, probably about half an hour on a good day. It was not a good day. After whatever it was that happened yesterday the trains were running again but the delays and slowed speeds were so mind numbingly frustrating that you were starting to debate the benefits on licking the third rail. 

And so your half an hour commute became your two hour forty five minute commute in a packed train pressed up against the door being squished between a man in a bear costume and a person preaching loudly directly into your ear. 

And Sans’ coat was so fucking warm.

You worked in a cafe between 23rd and 24th street. It was a cute little place, a place where the art students in the high school just off the block would sometimes drop in to take photos of for an art project. You understood, if you were still in school you’d probably go to your cafe to take selfies with friends in front of the rainbow lines of macaroons on display. You weren’t the one who set up the shop’s displays but you still felt a sense of pride when the students took photos of them. 

When you walked into the shop there was a clear sense of relief, even though the unpredictable weather in spring didn’t quite justify putting in an air conditioner inside enough for your boss to do it, you felt a sense of freedom when you went into the back and finally took off that huge oven of a coat.

You tied your black apron around your waist, less to keep your clothes clean and more for the aesthetic of it. It just looked good and so it was the uniform. For some reason. 

Before actually leaving and going behind the counter you sat down with a deep sigh on the bench in the break room fanning yourself lazily. Maybe there was a bag that your boss would let you take to carry the coat in? You wouldn’t be able to return it to Sans if you died of heat stroke. 

The door swung open and you heard footsteps behind you. Your coworker, Makena, walked inside shrugging her bag off her shoulder. “Ah! Hey,” She smiled at you. “Hey, thanks for covering for me yesterday, I’m really sorry about that.”

You stood and readjusted your apron. “It’s no problem. Is everything alright?”

She shuffled to put her things away and put on her matching apron. “Yeah, it’s nothing. My sister’s kid finally came home it was all really hectic.”

“Oh, right, your nephew was missing for a while wasn’t he? It’s great that he’s home now. What’s his name again?”

“Kiran. Look, hey, I feel really bad about ditching you like that so let me make it up to you. Let me take over for you sometime so we’re even, okay?” 

You were about to tell her that she didn’t have to do that, that it was fine and that you were glad to help. And then your mind went back to the coat.

“Oh, yeah. Uh, I actually have to go deliver something later today so could you maybe take over my last shift for the day?” 

She agreed, relieved that she wasn’t going to be indebted to you forever. In fact, she said that much. In those words. “I’m so relieved that I’m not going to be indebted to you forever.” She said. She was a bit over dramatic. Still you laughed her exaggeration off relieved that you’d be able to get the coat to Grillby’s when it  _ isn’t _ dark and freezing out and you had time to actually get home before another bullshit tragedy decides to strike. 

This really would have been so much easier if you had just gotten his phone number. 

The day passed by slowly, it was a really empty day. All of the students were in that high school or the college a few blocks down, the only people who really stopped by were retired couples or workers on lunch break. And even then patrons came few and far between, since all the businesses that weren’t food establishments were up the street closer to 34th and 42nd than 23rd. But that was just fine, because you spoke with Makena and the boss Hadley when he came in and you were able to have a nice relaxing day that didn’t involve any soccer moms insisting to see the manager because they didn’t know how taxes worked.

A few monsters came in, but the neighborhood was mostly human. It was already heavily populated before the Underground was freed and few monsters managed to get places anywhere even near there. In fact, it was a very segregated place. Not enforced by law, but by monsterphobia and gentrification. Was the term for hatred of monsters “monsterphobia”? “Monsterism”? Whatever. It was something and everyone knew what it meant. 

It was such a slow day, in fact, that even after the bell rang letting the students out from the school business barely spiked. Hadley decided that it was time to close up for the day. You were taken by surprise, Hadley never closes up early not even on days like this. He always insisted on staying as long as possible just in case a customer arrives even though he knew perfectly well that the later it gets the less likely someone is going to stop by a purple themed  _ bakery _ . His dedication was admirable. But then again, he was an insomniac and lived in the apartment complex just above this so it wasn’t exactly hard to stay such long hours. 

He probably never had to be teleported home by a skeleton. 

It was only eight when you closed up, you wiping down the tables, Makena emptying out the trays, and Hadley doing everything else. The sky was getting darker and snow began to fall. 

What the  _ fuck _ .

You moved into the break room to fold your apron and put Sans’ coat back on. You slid your phone from your pocket and double, scratch that, triple checked the route from 23rd to Delen. It was a forty minute ride on the 1 train and then a transfer to the V for another 12 stops. It was really far away. You silently thanked God that Hadley decided to close up shop so early.

You get to Grillby’s after an hour and ten minutes worth of train riding and walking. You honestly silently ask yourself why you’re so determined to return a coat. Really, you had no idea. Is that something normal people do? Why were you trusting Sans to be at Grillby's? Was this a bad coffee shop au? You resolve to stop comparing your life to fanfiction, because lets be honest, you in a fanfiction? That could never happen. That was absurd. You forcefully tell yourself to stop thinking about this.

The bell on the door jingles as you walk in. Grillby looks up at you from the same position he was in yesterday, still wiping down the counter tops, and gives a practiced mod. He paused and looked at you for a moment. “Ah, you’re back.” 

You smiled at him and nodded, walking back to the seat you were sitting in the day before. 

“Huh, you must have really liked my jacket.”

You heard Sans speak and the realization that you were  _ wearing _ his  _ coat _ hit you like a train. You did all you could not to sputter stupidly. Granted, trying is not the same as succeeding. You blushed and quickly shrugged off the coat laughing forcefully. “Ha... yeah, I, uh, you left it last night and I didn’t know how to give it back to you. I figured that I should come here and maybe Grillby would know you well enough to take it and give it to you for me.” You held your arms out handing the jacket over. He pulled it on.

“Heh, you got me. I’m a regular, Grillbz and I go way back.” 

You looked over at Grillby and smiled. “Oh, really.” You felt almost weird being so comfortable with two people who had only spoken to once before. 

“Yeah, ever since the Underground. I was his best customer in all of Snowdin.” He said it in a proud way as he opened a bottle of ketchup and just. Downed it. Right there. The full thing. Grillby did not seem surprised by this. 

“In  _ Snowdin _ ?” You raised your eyebrows at the bartender who was literal fire. “That’s surprising. Snowdin is the small winter town, right? I don’t know the Underground too well, but that seems a bit strange.”

Grillby laughed loosely. His laugh warmed your heart as much as his everything else warmed your flesh. “Perhaps. But it was a very peaceful place.”

“Grillbz kept everyone warm.”

You laughed into the back of your hand. “I’m not surprised.”

Sans let out a content sigh when he finished his ketchup. He leaned on his hand and closed his eyes (how?) “Even now, Grillbz comes to the coldest place here.”

“So I’ve noticed. This place is really warm after all that random cold out there. It’s honestly really relieving. It’s a good thing I found this place yesterday or I probably would have frozen to death.” You grinned and slid your wallet from your pocket, and slid money on the counter towards Grillby. “Plus, your burgers were delicious. So I’ll have another one today.”

“Yep, Grillby makes the best in town.”

“I’ll have to start coming here more often then.” You smiled at Grillby as he placed a plate in front of you. 

“Well, if you’re gonna be a regular than I should give you my phone number. Tibia-nest I know every customer in town..” He tossed you a friendly wink. The puns did not grow on you overnight.

You nodded and quickly exchanged phone numbers. You typed yours directly into your phone, Sans swore he’d remember what you said. And for some reason you didn’t doubt his ability to memorize ten new numbers randomly. 

You finished your burger, but stayed for quite a bit after. You wanted to at least wait for the snow to stop before you left. You only had Sans’ coat today, meaning once again you were severely under dressed. This was becoming a bad habit. 

But Grillby’s was warm and Grillby was warm and you got the opportunity to talk to the two of them more as you waited for the air outside to not feel like it was coming to cut you open. Monsters were something else, truly. Humans were cruel. Selfish. And even as Sans and Grillby (And a few other monsters who were friends with the two who just chimed in every now and then) spoke of their life Underground and their fight for freedom you could hear the tiniest hint of something off in Sans’ voice. That it wasn’t what they expected to be. That reaching the top wasn’t as fulfilling as the uphill climb made it out to be. 

The monsters you met were so kind. They cared for each other. But humans didn’t. And it was when you put two and two together that you realized a monsters kindness did not mix with a human's sense of self, and that you started to pick up just why Sans looked so tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is actually going to have more meaning than the first chapter may have made it out to have?? i want this to be an exploration in a humans perspective about humans treatments of monsters but dont worry itll be mostly undertones i plan to keep this story pretty light.


	3. Step 3: Acquaintances are Better than Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to start kicking up now, starting with a visit from someone who isn't quite familiar.

There was a man before you. A pure white and caved in eye sockets-- a monster of course. You could see his body but you felt him everywhere, enveloping you like smoke. You couldn't tell if he was corporeal or not, the harder you tried the more ambiguous it became. You felt like two people, both here both you but not the same. When you squeezed your right hand you could feel it. Twice.

Your vision was split, you could see from both eyes of both “you”’s Four eyes, you learned, created an indescribable change in depth perception. He raised his hands to your face (Two hands that you felt on four cheeks).

His thumbs cradled your face gently. He spoke in words you couldn’t understand. No, he spoke in letters you couldnt understand. He made noises you could not physically replicate. But you know he was speaking, speaking to you as he rubbed his thumbs over your cheekbones.

He was tryng to tell you something.

The room was black and white, but you could see every color absorbed into the white and you could feel every color reflected by the black. Colors you’ve never seen before. You felt smart, like you knew everything the world had to offer, like you could solve paradoxes, like you could create knowledge.

What was he saying?

His hands slipped from your face and you could breathe again. You inhaled the black smoke that made up his debatably incorporeal body. You choked on it, coughing, wheezing. You squeezed his eyes shut and he was gone.

You coughed yourself out of sleep.

You coughed yourself awake, into your hands and you couldn’t breathe. Your body jolted as the coughs lightened up. You breathed heavily and looked at your hands. A black goo ran down your fingers. You turned on the light. There was nothing there.

You looked at the time. Two AM. You called Sans.

Two rings and a click and a voice that was decidedly not Sans answered. “Hello? This is the residence of The Great Papyrus.”

“Huh? Oh, uh, I’m sorry I might have the wrong number, um Sans gave me this and--”

“Sans? Ah, yes! My brother. This is my cellphone number he gave you. Do you want to speak with him?” He pulled the phone away from his face and called out before you could answer. Though quieter, you could hear him call for Sans.

“Oh, what’s your name?” You told him and heard Papyrus call out again, this time saying that you specifically called.

You assumed Sans was then present because you heard some muffled banter on the other end. It sounded comical even though you couldn’t hear a single thing either one was saying. You heard the phone being passed and a voice that was much more Sans say, “Hey, what's up.”

You opened your mouth to tell him, then you stopped. What was up? You called him for a reason and it made so much sense at the time. Why did you call? Why did you think to call him? You had lots of closer friends in your contacts list to talk to. Why did you call? What had happened again?

“Hey, pal, you there?”

You blinked and stuttered out... something. Some string of sounds that came together in one way or another. Not coherent, sure, but it was a sign that you didn’t die during the call so that probably counted for something. You tried to collect yourself. “I... I don’t-- Sorry for calling so early, I don’t remember. Did I wake you up?”

“Nah, me and my bro were up already. He wanted me to try his master chef spaghetti.”

You looked at your digital alarm clock. 2:12 AM. You spoke slowly. “Why...?”

He didn’t say anything but you knew he was probably shrugging on the other end. Papyrus said something about ‘his brother talking about his spaghetti’ and ‘why not invite them over’. Sans then repeated these statements addressing you directly.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there femur you know it.”

And just before he hung up you could hear his brother cry out in anguish.

* * *

 

Something or other happened and then you were at their home. Probably Sans’ thing he did to get you home that night. That thing he did, whatever it was, made you dizzy every time he did it. But it was considerably faster than nine E stops, twelve 1 stops, and every V stop. So you could appreciate that much.

Sans took you inside and lazily flopped down on the couch and tossed a shrugging gesture to his home. “Here it is.”

“Sans!” A taller (much taller) skeleton came out of the kitchen yelled in a stern voice. “Get up you lazy bones, be a good host!” The guy looked at you fully. He wore and apron speared in four types of sauce among other less identifiable foods. He was holding a whist covered in sauce with noodles tangled in the wire. You had so many questions. You decided to ask none of them. “You’re the human on the phone! Well, human, I am The Great Papyrus! It is a pleasure to meet you, forgive my brother for being so rude.” He was eccentric and shaking your hand wildly. Still he had a charm to him that made you smile.

“The spaghetti is almost done, you came just in time! If you didn’t call when you did we would have eaten it all and you’d never taste the fruit of my culinary genius.” Papyrus was practically sparkling in confidence, but you could see the stove behind him in the kitchen next to an absurdly tall sink and you could feel the doom that seemed to poison the apartment and everyone inside but Papyrus.

Sans gave you a sympathetic look and dread ran through you. “Feel free to look around our home while you wait.”

The house was full of strange things that would probably have entertaining flavor text in a video game.

“Hey.” You looked back at Sans. He had sat up, taking up only half of the couch he sat on. He waved a hand, gesturing you over to the other side. You followed his hand and sat next to him.

“Are you okay? What happened back there?”

You looked between his eye sockets and then looked down at your palm. “I don’t know. Something happened, something big and I felt like I had to call you. I was really freaked out and I felt like if I didn’t get in touch with you something really bad would happen. But as soon as I called I didn’t remember what it is. Or why I called.”

Sans nodded and turned facing you fully. “What was it like?”

“What?”

“What was it like? If you don’t remember what happened tell me why you were so panicked.”

At the word panic you looked back at your palms. You weren’t sure why. “I... I couldn’t stop coughing. It woke me up and I felt like something important just happened. Someone was talking to me, I think. I don’t know, it was probably just a nightmare. Sorry for bothering you with this.” 

Sans didn’t even want to crack a bone pun. He was very serious as he listened to your story. He looked like he was contemplating something. 

“It’s fine, I--”

The tense and mysterious atmosphere was cut with Papyrus’ cheery voice. “Sans, Human, the spaghetti is done!”

Sans perked up immediately. “So, the spaghetti is spa-READY?”

The pun made you long for the cold embrace of death. Not exactly what happened that night but something told you that whatever had happened last night was very close.


	4. Step 4: Avoid Facing Your Problems Head On

Business was bad, Hadley knew it. Hadley never really fit the image of a bakery shop owner. He was tall and muscular and had dark hair and sharp eyes and had the sternness of a teacher and the face of a tough guy who never experienced mirth in his life. He was very quiet, you thought that he and Grillby would get along well.  
But he was proud and never admitted defeat, that’s why you and Makena often stayed overtime. Just in case a customer comes after they closed up shop. You and Makena stayed for the Just In Case. Lot’s of employees quit after they learned how often Hadley asked people to stay overtime, that’s why Makena and you were the only two current employees.

In some ways it brought an air of freshness, that regulars knew your names and that you knew theirs. But it was hard, only three employees in the shop. When business decreased it was almost a relief to you. But business just kept getting worse and the relief passed and was replaced with concern. It killed Hadley to do it, it was another way of admitting defeat, but eventually he had no choice but to lower your and Makena’s pay.  
You were fine, you only needed to take care of yourself, makena however lived with her sister and her newly returned nephew. Your new salary suited you just fine, but absolutely did not support a family of three.  
So she quit and you and Hadley were the only two survivors in the bakery that had taken so many.

Add a set of stress bags under Hadley’s eyes to the list of things that did not make him look the part.  
There were some good things that came out of the shop, still. For instance a customer who had started to come practically on a daily basis. She was a teacher at the daycare or elementary school or middle school or whatever near the high school. It was also possible that she worked in the high school. She was definitely a teacher.

She was a goat monster with an absurdly strong maternal instinct, such that you called her “Mom” four times even though you were out of school and lived on your own. You never caught her name. 

“Oh, hello dear.” You heard her speak softly from the glass door that rung as it was opened. She had to duck into the door frame, she was huge. “How are you today?” 

You looked over and smiled at her. “Hey there. You coming for more snacks for your students?” 

She giggled as she walked over to your position at the counter, she rested her hands on the marble in front of you and gave you a warm smile, the kind of smile that jaded adults didn’t have the capability to give. Maybe she was the middle school teacher? She was always too kind of be able to survive a high school. “Oh, yes. I am, my students had perfect attendance today so I’m going to give them a snack tomorrow as a reward.” She shuffled in place, her robe fluttering as she reached to the bag slung over her shoulder. She took out a wallet that looked handmade with the words “World’s Best Mom” embroidered into the front. It was cute.

You turned around and pushed yourself off the counter walking back over to the table top behind you. You took out some dough and worked your hands in it. “Sure, it’s nice that you reward them for good behavior. I’m sure you’re their favorite teacher.” You spoke over your shoulder. You already knew what to make for the students.

She giggled behind you again, putting her hand over her mouth to stifle it. “Well, I don’t know about that.” She most certainly did know about that. “I just want to give my kids some positive reinforcement, it works better to get them to want to work than punishment.”

“Carrot and stick. Hey, how many kids are in your class?” 

“Thirty.”

You nodded as you went back to attending the dough, you separated the dough into three bowls and dyed each a different color. You worked the dye into the dough as she spoke to you, without Makena here and Hadley constantly doing something you didn’t realize that it had gotten a bit lonely in the shop. “How have you been, my child? Hadley told me that it’s just the two of you now, isn’t that difficult?” 

You pulled the pink dough out first, rolling it flat and cutting out eighty circles in it, putting forty each on two different pans you put them in the oven. You moved to continue the process with the green dough. “Hm... it’s a bit harder, sure. Since Makena and I always did most of the front store work and Hadley was always off doing something behind the scenes, I’m the only one baking now. But, there’s not many people coming in.” The silence from the empty tables scattered in the bakery agreed. “It’s hard, but I can still do it.”

She nodded, you couldn’t see it since your back was to her, but you knew she was. You heard her walking, the sound of chair legs scraping the floor, and the creaking of the seat as she sat down. “Well, it’s wonderful to see that you aren’t disheartened by this. I’m sure Hadley is glad that you were able to stay with him here.”

You put the batch of eighty green circles into the oven, and moved to the brown dough.

You heard the bakery uniform shoes tapping on the floor as Hadley emerged from the shadows of the back room, he walked quickly like it was urgent but it never was. He was just tall. His footsteps hesitated before he kept walking. “Oh, Toriel, it’s good to see you.” You heard him say. You looked over your shoulder and saw him walking towards the only customer in the shop, she stood when he approached her and he moved to kiss her cheek. More like the air around her cheek. He seemed happy to see her, you had learned how to read his stoic expression like a book. 

“Hello, Hadley. It’s been a while since I last saw you.”  
You throw an offhanded comment about how she was at the shop practically every day and that he would have seen her if he was ever up front. He ignored you.  
“Yes.” He reached out and pat her arm. “What timing too, my wife was actually talking about inviting you and Frisk over to dinner soon.” 

Toriel’s face seemed to light up and she nodded, her ears flapping with her motions. “That sounds wonderful! Frisk and I would love to come and catch up with you and Searyth.” They shared a friendly laugh as you put the blue circles into the oven. You wiped your hands on the cloth and turned back to face the two of them. You quickly brewed a cup of tea and stepped out from behind the counter to put it in front of Toriel. She had sat back down and she and Hadley continued to speak in domestic family terms that you did not understand.   
She thanked you as you gave it to her. Hadley nodded at you and glanced at the clock over the door. It was five.

“Hey, when you’re done with Toriel’s macroons you can head home early today.” 

“Alright, I got it.” You nodded and moved back behind the counter, opening the oven door and checking in on the pastries. “Kinda surprised, you always keep the shop open as late as possible.” Hadley looked away, you kept this in mind.

A phone rang, Toriel jumped and searched through her bag. She pulled out an old (an ancient) black cellphone. “Ah! Excuse me, you two.” She picked it up as she walked outside the shop and stood in front of the glass door.

“I didn't realize you and miss Toriel were so close.”

Hadley turned to you and nodded. “Yes, she's a close friend of my wife. She's very kind. I'm glad she can come to the bakery so often.” 

You nodded. Toriel peeked in the door, “That was my child, they were just let out of school. I will go pick them up I’ll be back in just a moment.” She adjusted her bag and walked back outside.

You smiled, Hadley waved. “It's... Hm.” He furrowed his eyebrows and looked down at the counter. “Hey, do you want to stay for dinner? There's a few things I should tell you about. The sooner the better.” Your stomach knotted. You were very afraid that you knew where this was going. 

“Sure.” You said. You took the last of the macroons out of the oven. Somehow, with the dread weighing down on your shoulders they didn't look at colorful as before. “I’d love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew I know I made you wait for this one but it's still not even very good!! I promise the next chapter will be better, it'll actually be a major plot chapter probably a turning point of the story that sets everything else into motion


	5. Step 5: Expect the worst. You'll always be right.

You have never actually been into Hadley's apartment before. Which was a bit strange, you considered him a friend and you could tell by the way he lowered his guard around you and let his extremely inexpressive self emote around you that he thought so too. It wasn't a matter of him living very far away, either. His apartment was right above the bakery. In the employee's only room in the back there was a tall staircase that lead up to a short hallway that went right to his door. You always knew there was probably a reason he never brought you up, but you didn't actually know what it was. 

You have been very aware of how little you really knew about Hadley's personal life for a long time.  Somehow, being invited into his home like this felt like you were crossing some border, and you had no idea if the other side would be better or worse. 

You were nervous.

Toriel came for her snacks and she stayed while you and Hadley cleaned the shop up, making light hearted conversation and offering to help wherever she could. Hadley always rejected her offer. He was just that kind of guy. You scrubbed the pans, he put the display pastries into the freezer, Toriel spoke to both of you. She was very approachable. She made a pun and your blood ran cold and you felt physically ill. It reminded you of Sans.

 

Toriel left as you two finished up, you wiped your wet hands on your apron and looked to Hadley. “You know, if I'm going to stay anyway I could still work.”

He looked down. “No... That's... No, you work hard enough already. Here, come upstairs. I don't want you to be in the bakery while we get dinner ready.” He brushed his hair to the side. “Get changed, just come and knock when you're ready.” You walked to the back together, he went upstairs and you went to your locker changing your uniform for your proper clothes. You looked at your phone. You wanted to text Sans. You didn't have anything to say, but you just felt like you had to text him. You didn't have anything to say, but you  _ should _ . 

_ There's a customer who tells puns. Thought maybe you'd wanna know. _

You folded your apron squeezing it a bit too tightly. You thought that Hadley finally feeling comfortable enough to let you into his house would be good. It just filled you with dread. Hadley was your friend, but he was still him. 

You climbed the stairs to his apartment slowly paying attention to every detail of the place. The rail was wooden, rough and dry but not splintery. More like well carved and sanded by hand. He would do something like that. The railing was very well crafted with a nice elegant design. It wasn't too extravagant but still had the beauty of a person who wanted to make the entrance to their house look nice even though it was in an employee lounge at the back of an unpopular bakery. 

The door was solid and beige, the plate 2A over the viewer, it was really a normal apartment. You knocked on the door lightly.

The person who answered was not Hadley.

She was tall, and obscenely fluffy. She practically looked like a cloud. Her face was long and she had two tiny horns peeking out from her fur. She was chubby and at the sight of you she was very surprised. You blinked and pulled yourself from your momentary stupor. “O-Oh, um, hello. I’m, Hadley invited me up, I work downstairs.” You introduced yourself properly and Hadley poked his head out of the doorway. Hadley was tall. It was one of the things that made him look intimidating, but the sheep monster next to him  _ towered _ . You knew Hadley was six foot four or so, the woman had to have been at least seven feet.

“Oh, you’re here.” He stepped in front of the sheep monster in front of you. He wore one of the full body aprons that were part of the shops original uniform but was long since replaced with a much more stylish waist apron for purely aesthetic purposes. You hadn’t actually ever wore one of those, Makena worked here for a much longer time than you and you had only ever heard stories of it. Hadley didn’t like to waste, that he kept the original apron for personal use really didn’t come as much of a surprise to you. “Searyth, this is one of my employees.” He introduced the two of you to each other. You smiled and offered a hand and a smile with a ‘ _ It’s nice to meet you. _ ’ Searyth, gently took your hand into her larger one. 

“I-It’s nice to meet you too...” Her voice was soft and light, she bashfully looked away from you. She seemed very shy. “Please... Please come in.” She stepped to the side opening the door farther for you to enter. 

Hadley followed in after the both of you shutting the door behind him. “Make yourself comfortable I’ll let you know when dinner is ready.” He said as he walked right back into the kitchen. 

The apartment was quaint, it wasn’t especially large, the bathroom was an almost immediate right from the entrance, there was an open living room, a small kitchen, and a bedroom. It wasn’t huge, but it seemed to be just the right size for the two. The furniture was large and spaced apart (No surprise, the two were practically giants after all.) but quaint. Homely. The entire apartment smelled like pine wood and fabric softener. 

You and Searyth made your way into the livingroom sitting in opposite chairs across a coffee table. It was quiet, she fidgeted with her dress, nervous, which made you fiddle with the hem of you shirt, also nervous. She was glancing around the home quietly, like she was trying to think of someway to make conversation with you. 

“I-um,” She jumps at the sound of your voice, like she wasn’t expecting you to speak first. She blinked quickly and gave a tight patient smile. “Your home is very nice.”

She looked down at her lap, a vague blush colored her cheeks as she twiddled her thumbs. “Th-thank you...” And the silence returned. You could really pick up on the similarities between her and Hadley. Five minutes passed with the only sound being Hadley shuffling around the kitchen putting pans places and things in devices. “Um...” Searyth spoke again. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Hadley talks about you and Makena a lot. Since, I mean, you’re-you’re the only employees left so he doesn’t have many other people to talk about. 

This struck you as odd. Hadley never mentioned Searyth at all. Ever. But he spoke to her about you and Makena? She lived upstairs but you’ve never seen her before in your life. Toriel knew the name, but you didn’t. “Oh, really?” You said this instead of anything that went through your mind.

She smiled at you, she looked almost relieved that you spoke to her. “Yes... Oh, but Makena quit recently, didn’t she? It must be hard manning the store on your own...”

“It was rough at first, I couldn’t get used to it. But since that Hadley's been working in the shop more, so it's not like I’m running the  _ entire _ shop alone.”

“Well, that’s good. He always hid up here and controled the shop behind the scenes... It’s not like I don’t understand, but it’s nice that he can interact with more people now.”

“Understand what--”

There was a magnetic bang of an oven door swinging closed, behind you Hadley came out from the kitchen working on untying the apron. He walked to where you and Searyth were and tossed the apron over the back of his chair and sat down with you. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t interrupt.”

“No, you didn’t.” You replied. “It’s fine.”

He nodded and looked at Searyth, she looked back through her eyelashes. 

Hadley took a deep breath and pushed his elbows off of his knees to sit up straight. “Okay, I want to get this over with.” Searyth nodded in approval with a sympathetic look in her eye. “So,” Hadley turned towards you looking you in the eye. His gaze really was cold looking. “Um, the shop.”

This was what you were waiting for. You knew it would happen. 

He scratched the back of his head pointing his eyes down at the coffee table. “Business is... bad.”

“Yes.” You nodded in agreement.

“And I know I just cut your pay, and Makena left us...”

“Yes.”

“And I really hate to do this, really, but, um...”

“Yes.”

“I’m closing the shop.”

“What?”

Hadley glanced up at you and then to Searyth who put a comforting hand on his knee. He laced his fingers in her rubbing circles into the back of her hand with his thumb. He gulped and looked back at you. “It’s a miracle that the shop even survived so long with just three employees. Business slowed down which was why we could still function. Um...” Hadley sighed and looked into your eyes with a new resolve. “Searyth is my wife.”

“Well, yeah.” You nodded. “I could kind of figure that out.”

“No, it’s that... Look, I never talked about my personal life because of it. I love Searyth more than anything else but a lot of people don’t approve of it.” You momentarily remembered the day a person came into the shop and persistently insisted that she speak to Hadley directly. When he came out she immediately began yelling that bestiality is still illegal. You didn’t understand at the time. Now it’s starting to make more sense. “When the Underground opened up we met. The government was absolutely chaotic and everything was shut down... We ended up getting married while the debate about whether monsters and humans should be allowed to. A lot of people resented us for it. The days I call you and say not to come into work were the days where there were people in the bakery protesting. That’s why business went down. They’re boycotting us.”

This was the most you had ever heard Hadley talk at once since you met him and you really, really wished he would just shut up already. 

“So, we’re closing down. I’m really sorry.” He bowed. “I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

You looked between him and Searyth. You nodded in understanding. 

You told him you couldn’t stay for dinner.

You lay your head into your folded arms on the bar, Grillby cleaned glasses and Sans gave you a reassuring pat on the back as you relayed your frustration. You sat up putting your face into your palms. “And on top of all that I’m already really behind on rent. I’m gonna have to go looking for a new place while I’m jobless. No way is this gonna go over well with my landlord. If I miss another month he’ll probably have me killed or something. Crap. Damn.”

“Hey.” You looked at Sans. “You know, me and Pap, there’s an apartment for rent in a building a few blocks away. Maybe you should check it out.” 

“But I’m still jobless. There’s no point in going there if I won’t be able to afford it.” Your head rolled back in frustration. You occasionally picked at the fries you ordered, Grillby’s was truly the perfect comfort food. 

“Nah, don’t worry about it. The rent’s pretty cheap and a few of my friends live there. They could put in a good word for you.” 

“You know, if you get an apartment nearby I’d be happy to hire you.” You practically shot out of your chair, slamming your hands on the bar counter. 

“Seriously?!” 

“Sure.” Grillby said. “I usually work alone, but some help might be nice.” 

You grabbed Grillby’s hands in between yours shaking them up and down fast enough to shake his entire body. “Yes! Yes, thank you so much, Grillby, oh god, I owe you my life. I’m indebted to you forever. I’ll remember this forever! This is--” You were cut off as the pain of literal fire on your bare hands finally caught up to you. You jumped back waving your hands in the air, through pain you smiled at Grillby. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate this.”

You looked back at Sans. “So, who are these friends of yours?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally the oc centric characters are passed and now we're really gonna get into it it'll be almost 100% undertale characters from here on out


	6. Step 6: Kindness is Sparse, Take What You Can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while lmao

You actually thought up a pun as you were packing your things into boxes and you hated yourself for it. You actually yelled at sans for it, who just lazily shrugged with a “I guess my  _ humerus _ rubbing off on you.”

“I’m going to die if you keep this up. Is that what you want? Me dead? Is that your sick game? I can’t believe you’re killing me in my own home.’

You had to admit though, Sans was a very valuable asset. He could use telekinesis to help disassemble things and box them safely away. And that whole teleporting thing he does would inevitably save your back in the long run. With monster magic this would have to be the easiest move you’ve ever done. 

Papyrus was there too. He was substantially less helpful but his heart was in the right place. He seemed to have a limited concept of mass and volume, as he tried to put your entire couch in an extra large cardboard box. He occasionally decided to make a show of his strength, lifting full pieces of Ikea furniture with one hand. You, of course, noticed the blue halo around the furniture outline, but you let Papyrus have his pride.

Papyrus also made his ‘famous spaghetti’ at around 2, stopping you and Sans for lunch.

“You know,” He said serving spaghetti up on a paper plate, your porcelain already long packed away, “The lady who owns the apartment you’re going to live in actually taught me how to make my irresistible spaghetti!”

Your gut twisted in anxiety but you maintained a beaming smile for papyrus’ sake. “Really? No way they’re better than you, though.” Sans pat your shoulder and whispered that she was actually capable of cooking edible food. You heaved in relief as Papyrus put your food in front of the both of you. He put his jaw in his hands and smiled at you. For a skeleton he was indeed very expressive.

“Of course she is! The apprentice can not pass the master, but I’m getting pretty dang close if you ask me.”

You took a bite of pasta and fought to keep your face straight. Sans mentioned that Papyrus was ridiculously positive though, that he takes insult as compliments. Still you wanted to do your best to avoid offending the poor boy. But at this point you figured he had a deflective shield of sunshine and unwavering faith in everyone he’s ever met. It was actually rather charming.

Still the moment he turned his back you pushed the pasta onto his plate.

“Wow, you finished already!” He clapped, taking your plate and giving you another serving. It would be impossible to run from his spaghetti forever. And you knew it. 

“Yup.” Sans chimed. “Humans really find your spaghetti irresistible. Just look at the kid.”

Papyrus beamed. You’ve never seen a skeleton look so proud. 

Your phone buzzed on the table next to you. A text from Makeena.

_ the shop closed?? how come are you ok  _

_ I’m okay! I actually have a new job already, so don’t worry about me! _

You looked at the time, 2:46. You were a little nervous, you had to say. Sans and Papyrus both vouched for the owner of the apartment, Grillby seemed to know her too. At this point it started to seem like every monster knew every monster. Like, by this point you’d think that you’d find at least one monster who didn’t know all of the others that you know, and yet.

You were going to meet the owner at 5. 

Your phone buzzed.

“Oh, no, Papyrus, thanks but I really need to keep packing.” It was a thinly veiled lie. Literally everything in your apartment was packed. Sans was too helpful, he was ruining your chance to escape. 

“Oh. That’s alright!” He took your plate and freaking  _ inhaled _ that spaghetti. “More for me then!”

You nodded pushing yourself up from the table, and took your phone with you as you walked into another room. You pressed the call button, you didn’t need to check to know who it was.

“Hello?”

“Oh. Oh, hey.” It was Hadley. He seemed to be getting really bad anxiety over the bakery closing. He’s called every day this week to offer to help you in any way he can. 

“Hey, Hadley. What’s up?”

“Um. Where are you moving to?”

“Delen. On the V line.”

“Oh.”

As always, Hadley was a man of few words and absolutely no idea how to use them to further a conversation. “Why? Aw, are you gonna miss me?” He could hear the smile in your voice.

“A little, yeah.” 

“Tell you what.” You leaned on the window sill behind you. “How about you come tonight? My friend is helping me move, we should be all settled in today. Ain’t monster magic incredible? So, you should come to where I work.”

“Oh. Your new job.”

“Don’t sound so jealous, buddy.” You laughed. “Come over tonight we’ll have a moving in party. I’ll text you the address to Grillby’s, okay?”

You sent him the address, Hadley the address, he was quiet over the line for a while. “You got it?” You asked.

“... This is...” You’ve never heard Hadley sound so uncertain in your life. Nervous. Anxious? Unconfident. “Delen is really monster heavy, isn’t it?”

“What? Yeah, it is. What’s wrong?”

“It’s just... my own species is so against me because I married Searyth. Monster’s might not...”

“Don’t worry.”

“...”

“The monsters are all really kind. That’s where I met Sans when he brought me home. And Grillby hired me without a second thought.” You crossed your arm over your chest. “Monsters are a lot more kind than humans are. I’ll be right there with you. Okay?”

“Okay.” He sighed. “I’ll be there at eight.” And he hung up. You weren’t too bothered by the lack of a goodbye, you were used to it at this point. It felt good knowing that nothing between you and Hadley changed after the shop closed. You were looking forward to seeing him again.

Papyrus knocked on the door. “Human! It’s almost time to go, come over here, you need to get ready!”

* * *

 

Sans brought you to the front door. You were slowly becoming more used to teleporting with him. Still wasn’t good. But better.

“Here, give her this! She loves these.” Papyrus pushed a bone wrapped in paper into your hands. You nodded with a glint of newfound determination in your eye. 

You reached forward and pushed the doorbell. 

You heard a scream and things falling and crashing, the sound of something being thrown, and banging on the walls. You seemed to be the only person present who thought that it was a bit odd. 

The door opened, a yellow lizard with glasses stood in front of you. “Oh, um, y-yes?” She saw the skeletons behind you and visibly relaxed. 

“Hello, Alphys!” Papyrus chirped, rushing forward and pulling her into a tight hug. “Here, the human brought something!”

“O-Oh, uh, thank you very much!” She took the bone. “I’ll call--”

Thundering footsteps echoed through the house and the door was flung open all the way. “Yo! Is that Papyrus!?” The blue lady launched herself at him, pulling him into a crushing bear hug lifting him off the ground. “Pap, my dude, what’s up? I haven’t seen you in forever? What’s going on!? What’s-Who...?” She finally looked in your direction. “Who’s that.”

“This is my good friend!” Papyrus introduced you to her. “They need to move nearby.”

“Nice clothes.” She pointed at your ‘Cool Dude’ shirt. “Is that Pap’s special outfit?”

You nodded unconsciously standing a bit straighter. 

“Nice.” She grinned, putting Papyrus down and turning to you. “Papyrus’ seal of approval. Hey, come in.”

She stepped to the side to let you all in. 

“So, uh, why do you need to move?” Alphys asked as Undyne went through her fridge to get some drinks out for you all.

“Oh, I was hired at Grillby’s, but right now I live pretty far away.”

“Grillby’s? I thought he always worked alone?”

You nodded. “Me too. But I told him about how my last job closed down and he took me in.”

“Leave it to Grillbz to always help a friend in need.” Sans leaned forward on the table. 

Undyne returned with all the tea makings she had in her fridge(Why the hell did she have tea bags in a fridge?) “Well if Papyrus trusts you then so do I!” You questioned Undyne’s complete lack of security.

“Wonderful!” Papyrus clapped. “Sans, isn’t that great? The human is going to live so close to us!” 

Undyne moved back to the front door, next to the entrance was a smaller stone staircase that lead down into the concrete to a door, a subsection of the house. She held out a key for you to take, and you unlocked the door.


	7. Step 7: Networking is Everything

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late lol I suck

You could feel the anxiety coming off of Hadley in droves before he even got into the bar. Probably because you could see him fidgeting outside of Grillby’s as you, your new housemates, Sans, Papyrus, and Grillby threw a tiny moving party. You weren’t telepathically connected to Hadley, if you were out back throwing garbage into the dumpster you probably wouldn’t have felt his self consciousness but you weren’t. Which was kind of surprising to you. Generally you thought that the new recruits would be doing the dirty busboy work like scrubbing dishes and taking the trash out the back but Grillby always did it himself. You offered to help once, but he just shook his head. You weren’t complaining though. You much prefered to be in the restaurant interacting with friends and customers than holding your breath over the dumpster. Also the only other exit aside from the front door was a fire escape. You figured that Grillby probably never asked you to go out back because you were not made of fire. That seemed reasonable enough. 

So because you were working at the bar you could see Hadley pacing towards and from the door outside.

“Hey, Grillby.” You reached over and pat your hand on his left arm (you found out his clothes were flame retardant, and though still hot to the touch it wouldn’t actually burn you like the rest of him would.) He looked over at you and raised an “eyebrow” or whatever it was that would be in the general area of an eyebrow. “My friend is out there, I’m gonna go bring him in, okay? I’ll be back in a minute.” He nodded as you made your way to the door.

Hadley jumped when the door opened. 

He spun around to face you, his eyes were wide his mouth slightly agape and his nose and cheeks red from the cold accented by his breath visible in the air. At this point you were wondering if he could actually express any emotions other than surprise. 

“It's a lot warmer inside, you know. My boss is literally made out of fire.” He clenched his jaw and pinched his eyebrows together. “You could have brought your wife with you you know.” 

“She's not very good in social situations.”

“Neither are you.” You held the door further open for him. “Come on inside.”

He meekly went in, following your lead to the bar and slid into the stool next to Papyrus directly in front of Grillby.

“Boss this is Hadley.” For some reason it seriously felt like introducing an ex to your lover. Considering the state of the bakery before it was closed it wasn't very surprising that Hadley was protective of you. 

Hadley nodded. “Hey.”

“Hello.”

They were getting along just fine.

You could hear the other patrons sniffing in your direction, the number of human customers had just doubled after all. Based on what you've heard this was probably more humans in one place than they had ever seen. 

“Toriel was wondering how you were doing.” Hadley said quietly sipping at the straw of the soda you ordered on his behalf. “Is it okay if I tell her where you're working? She’d love to see you.”

“Tori?” Sans’ head perked up and lifted his chin off of his hands. “You didn't tell me you knew Tori, kid.” 

You looked at him. This was seriously getting out of hand. “Do all monsters know each other or something?” You winced after you said that and opened your mouth again to change it but Sans raised his hand to silence you.

“Don't worry about it, honestly you're right. Hasn't every monster you've met so far know at least one of us?” And he was right. It was as if they were all the main characters of a story and everyone knew them because the author didn't write in the small characters who do mundane things that didn't further the plot. Sans knew everyone currently in Grillbys, which actually wasn't too surprising seeing as the crowd never changed. Like, ever. “Nah, we all know Tori.”

“You knew the queen, human?!” Papyrus leaned over towards you across Sans. “Oh! Tell her I said 'hi’! She knows me.” He said more to everyone else than you, “We've been penpals since the barrier shattered. But she does sometimes write puns in her letters, once she mailed me a blown up whoopee cushion and asked me to sit on it for her. I don't like such things, but she asked so nicely of course I just  _ had  _ to sit on it.”

“Yep, that's her. She always made puns when she stopped by the bakery.”

“Oh, is that the one you texted me about?” Sans dug into his pocket for his phone pulling up the text you had sent about Toriel.

“Yeah, that's her! Turns out she and Hadley were friends and were keeping it a secret from me.” You gently elbowed Hadley's shoulder and he looked down scratching his cheek and let out a breath of a laugh. “What a jerk right? Keeping me from the queen from the underground.”

“For shame.” Sans nodded and smacked Hadley's hand. You could see Hadley slowly loose the tension in his shoulders. He was slowly getting more comfortable, you were glad. You hadn't seen him smile so easily in a long time.

“My bad. I thought you knew.”

“First your wife, then Toriel, what's next? Are you hiding more cool friends I should meet?”

“Yup.”

“Wh– seriously?! Who?” 

Hadley reached across the bar and pat your arm. “All these monsters know each other. I'm sure you'll meet them eventually.” 

“Jerk. This is why I'm working for Grillby now.” You Pat Grillbys cheek and then immediately ran your hand under cold water. You'd seriously need to get used to this soon or else your hands will never forgive you. They're already getting calloused from all the times you touch literal fire. You briefly wondered if you should see a dermatologist for some moisturizer. 

“I bet I know 'em.” Undyne said through a mouthful of food. Alphys quietly but firmly told her not to talk with her mouth full. Undyne swallowed it in one giant gulp. She then started picking fries off of Alphys’ plate. Her appetite was seriously ridiculous. “I used to be the captain of the Royal Guard, I know everyone.” 

“And I am the current captain of the Royal Guard!” Papyrus threw in proudly. You decided not to ask what exactly he was guarding now that the barrier was broken, you let him have his fun. 

“Asgore?” Hadley said.

“Yo! Asgore is my bro, my main man, my fam, my dude–”

“Please stop.”

“We know Asgore.” Alphys nodded behind Undyne. “He was the king, I was his royal scientist and as Undyne said she, Papyrus, and Sans were sentries.”

“There's no way this is normal.” You learned your weight onto the bar. “Like. Maybe one person from my high school got famous-ish and that's only on tumblr. So like not even really famous just, like, a chronic shitposter. There's no way that every single one of you is famous.”

“I’m not.” Said Sans.

“Me neither.” Said Grillby, doing absolutely nothing to disprove your point.

“You had better all introduce me to them, got it? I am so lonley.”

Alphys nodded leaning towards you. “Oh, actually I believe that he has weekends off. Maybe we could invite him over on Saturday.”

“No, let's surprise him at school tomorrow!” Undyne suggested. “His students would totally love to meet us. We're super important historical figures, we can teach them about monster history and then we can learn about the big swords!”

Hadley looked at you mouthing  _ big swords _ . You shrugged your shoulders. You've heard stranger things from monsters.

Papyrus leaned across the bar taking your hand. “You're going to love Asgore. He's a big fluffy sweetheart. I, for one, want to hug him every time I see him. Anyone else? Or is that just me.” “Same, bro.” “Ditto.” 

You smiled at him. Behind you you felt a presence that wasn't there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not all seven of these first chapters are just setting up for the real plot to begin. Once I have Asgore and Frisk pinned down the real story will begin.   
> Here's a hint:  
> "The future shown in dreams is truly a misconstrued past."


	8. Step 8: The Good Doctor

You’re in a white room. You couldn’t discern where the floor met the wall met the ceiling. You tried to walk but your feet wouldn’t move. You looked down, black tar slowly began flooding the room, you struggled to free your feet but they were held like cement. The room was silent but the ringing in your ears deafened you. You turned your torso, losing balance falling forward you caught yourself with your hand. Your arm sunk further down and the tar rose engulfing your forearm. It was like a bad game of twister. You craned your neck further. 

A tidal wave came in, tar flowing like water yet held like stone. Your body jerked, trying to run, trying to rip your limbs out of the black goo, now up to you knees. You shook your head frantically, desperately tugging and pulling. 

The wave knocked you loose.

From the pars prison you were knocked back spinning in the black. You turned your head slowly, you could move your limbs. It wasn’t unlike being in water. You breathed in and out. In the tar you were safe.

A white mask emerged from the goo, pristine and clean it watch you. It was shattered.

As the tar seeped into your ears his voice became slowly clearer. Through static and echoes you heard half of his sentence before you were ripped from sleep.

“Yo!” Undyne shouted as your eyes finally fluttered open. “Wake up, we gotta get going to go see Asgore.”  
“Wh...” You mumbled delirious from the sleep you were being so cruelly denied. You blinked up at her and rolled over looking out the window of your bed. “What time is it?”

“Two AM.”  
You watched her for a moment and immediately went back to sleep.

“Oh no you don't!” You were lifted from your bed and heaved over Undyne's head, she threw you down rolling you like a bowling ball barreling into a wall. “C'mon! We gotta go surprise Asgore, we already called him so we have to go already!”

“Doesn't that ruin the surprise?” you asked sitting up rubbing your head.  
“Duh. that's why we're going at two AM.”

“I’m tired.”

“Too bad.”

She lifted you from the floor again and ran upstairs. Actually, she ran all the way to Asgore’s jobs front door. She then slam dunked you into a large bush and approached the doors where everyone else was waiting. Everyone else teleported here. You got slam dunked into a hedge shaped like Papyrus’ face. You rolled out of the bush landing face down in the grass, you slowly pushed yourself up.

A shadow fell over you and a body hand extended in front of you. You took the hand and Sans pulled you to your feet. 

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just... just tired.”

“Heh.” Sans  _ heh _ ’d. “Could be worse, at least Undyne carried you.”

You brushed off your shirt and plucked a leaf from your crown tossing it back into the bush. “How kind of her.” You walked up to the large double doors of the school building. It looked seriously high class, especially compared to the rest of the monsters neighborhood. No way would the city give funding to  _ this _ neighborhood, they don't even give funding to to human schools that already exist. This was probably an independent school built by the monsters after the barrier broke. It didn't necessarily explain the floral homage to Papyrus’ face but hey. Good for him. 

Alphys ran over to check on you, making sure that being barreled down onto the ground twice in an hour didn't hurt your delicate human spine. She bent your joints and poked at your fleshy skin. You had doubts whether she was actually qualified to give medical aid to a human.

You comforted her, assuring that you didn't break  _ every _ joint in your body. Maybe just one or two. She panicked and you made a mental note that jokes like that around her were probably not the best idea.

You pat her head smiling assuring her that you really were fine.

“If you're sure...” She nodded looking at you, clearly doing what she could to calm her own heart. 

“I am.” You confirmed. “Let's go back to the rest of them, okay?” 

You were put in the ground again as Papyrus ran at you football tackling you into a hug. You laughed at wrapped your arms around his torso. He wasn't heavy enough to have hurt you, he was practically  **_skin and bone_ ** . 

Hahaha, you haven't experienced mirth in years.

Another weight fell on top of you, you looked around his head and say a child—a  _ human  _ child—sitting back on his spine. They grinned like they accomplished something. It was seriously adorable.

“Human!” Papyrus still didn't have the concept of an 'inside voice’ quite yet. “This is my cool friend! A cool bro, a real pal!” The kid crawled forward on Papyrus’ back putting their hands on the top if his skull. They pat their palms over his eyes and nuzzled their cheek on his head. It was so cute you were seriously this close to crying. “This,” Papyrus stood off of you, moving to hold the child's ankles in place as they sat in his shoulders. “Is Frisk! You may have heard of them, they're actually a big deal, they, with my wonderful help of course, are the one who broke the barrier to the underground and set us all free!” He reached around behind him pulling Frisk into a hug. The kid practically wrapped their entire body around his face. 

Seriously if they didn't cut this cute shit the fuck out you were gonna have to go to the hospital. Jesus Christ. 

“And of course, they are my best cool friend. Look.” Frisk wiggled from his grasp and stood straight, puffed out their chest with their fists on their hips. Oh my god. Oh my god, they were wearing matching 'Cool Dude' shirts.

You bent forward getting a bit closer to Frisks eye level. They barely came up to you waist. “Nice to meet you, Frisk. I can't believe I’m meeting  _ another  _ celebrity. It's crazy how many famous people I'm meeting. It's almost as if there's a limited cast to work with and describing every individual person I pass on the street in a city like this would be an excess of irrelevant detail thus leading me to only interact with preset people for the sake of furthering the plot without creating a ridiculous amount of redundancy.”

Frisk crossed their arms and nodded. “I know, right?” They signed.

How convenient it is that you also speak sign language. What a strange series of ongoing coincidences that keep happening.

“Hey!” Undyne called out, getting everyone's attention. Oh my god she had a crowbar. She was prying the doors open. The door swung out clanging when it went as far as it could open. “Come on, let's go in!”

“Isn't this very illegal?”

“Sure is!”

And so you began your life of crime by breaking and entering. Your parents would not be proud of you.

You started to get the feeling that no one here was particularly good at planning things in advance when you entered the headmaster's office and Undyne began posing everyone very dramatically. And then you all stood there stiff and waiting for six hours until the headmaster's door opened. 

The goat monster was looking down at some files in his hands, his eyebrow furrowed as he shut the door behind him. He shuffled through the papers. When he glanced up Undyne shrieked “ _ Boo! _ ” And the poor man screamed, toppling back and sending his papers flying. He didn't move for a hard five minutes. You were still all in position.

“Is he dead?”

“Nah, he’ll be fine.”

The man gasped as his eyes shot open he heaved, rolled into his front pushing himself up and grabbing his chest. 

“Asgore!” Undyne jumped onto him, flinging an arm over his furry shoulders. “Surprise! Told ya.”

Asgore panted and looked at her, but a patient smile spread over his face. “Undyne, everyone, hello! It's very nice to see all of you again!” He stood up with Undyne’s help. Did you just give an old man a heart attack. 

Frisk waddled over and wrapped their arms around his thigh, patting him and pointing towards you. Asgore followed their visual prompt and turned his gaze to you. “Oh! Hello, and you are?” He had a deep voice, it was gentle and it felt like talking to a dad. He rubbed Frisk’s head to take them off of him so he could walk forward towards you. He offered a hand and you took it readily, telling him your name. 

“I see! Well, it's very nice to meet you.” 

“You too! Sorry about almost killing you.”

He laughed a deep booming laugh that you could feel vibrate in your chest. “No, no, don't worry about that! It's in the past, plus I know how to take a hit or two!” He puffed out his chest in pride.

Frisk averted their eyes for a moment so short that you barely registered it. 

You laughed with him, he offered everyone tea. 

(When he opened the cabinet that was labeled with a piece of scotch tape with the words 'tea safe’ written on it you saw more flavors of tea than you thought actually existed in the world. Sure there were some standard ones like Earl Grey or Cinnamon Apple, but there was also snail, MTT grade oil, the flavor of mercy, emotional devastation, and ‘how could this happen’ relaxation tea. It was a very relatable tea safe.)

You, of course, asked for a cup of 'trampled by horses as the girl you have feelings for looks on in disappointment’. It was a flavor. Just a flavor. You really couldn't describe it using adjectives. It was a flavor.

“Good choice!” Asgore said as he made another cup of the same tea for himself. “It's my own personal blend actually. One of my favorites, I am rather proud of it actually!”

“Why did you name it such a thing?” 

He smiled blankly at you before quickly turning to the others and asking what they wanted to drink. You had a feeling the poor guy wasn't okay. 

You looked down into the mug at your reflection in the tea. You felt anxiety bubble inside you and you heard a  _ plip  _ as a drop of black sludge fell into your cup. You watched emptily, like an outsider seeing through your eyes processing what was happening but not that it was happening to  _ you _ .

You reached a hand to your nose, touching your upper lip when you looked at your fingers you saw black goo smeared across them. 

You were put back into your body and jumped in your chair, moving your hand over your nose. 

“Huh? Hey, you okay?” Sans turned towards you. “What's–” he stopped as he saw the smears of black from under your nose. “Hey, come on, come with me.” He Helped you stand pulling you up by the elbow and walking out into.the hallway half-heartedly assuring everyone else that it was fine and not to worry.

Out in the hallway he pulled your hands away from your face holding your wrists in his hands, the oil smeared across your fingertips and palms, he moved his phalanges across your hand smudging some of the black substance onto himself. He narrowed his eyes at it, rubbing it between his fingers watching it spread. You saw the pinpricks of light flicker out in his eyes. He looked... pensive. Was that it? Pensive? You were a lot calmer than you probably should have been given the circumstance. You were dizzy. You were thrown against two hard surfaces after waking at two in the morning, you felt like your senses were short circuiting and though you could  _ see _ what was happening in front of you it seemed to go in one ear and out the other. You couldn’t fully comprehend what was happening, and you didn’t really care to either. 

You pulled your hands free from Sans’, he looked up at you the surprise bringing the spots back into his eyes, you rubbed the back of your hand under your nose smudging more of the black substance on your face and wrist. You held out your hands, fingers wide apart and away from your body afraid to touch anything and stain it with... whatever it is. 

Your focus swayed in and out on your hands. This wasn’t normal. You had periods of presence and absence and you couldn’t understand why. Your eyelids fluttered looking down. You could feel the panic rise in your throat but your body didn’t get the memo. You were completely inexpressive and for all of your fear you couldn’t show it for the life of you. Crap. What the hell?

“Hey, hey, hey, stay with me. You doin’ okay?” Your eyes slowly drifted towards the side but boney hands reached up grabbing your cheeks and pulling you down just so forcing you to watch Sans. 

“Uh...?”

You tried to ground yourself. Five things you could feel; Sans’ bones, the oil in your nose, the heavy feeling in your eyelids, your abnormally cold fingers, and the dull throbbing in your head that threatened to begin to pound. Five things you could see; Sans’ eyes darting between yours narrowing and analyzing you and your reactions, the black that was smudged across your hands and his, five tall windows with dark wooden frames looking out at the garden and at a hedge that (unfortunately) was not shaped like Papyrus’ head, a red and brown carpet under your feet that rolled down the hallway past Asgore’s office and off into the imminent unknown, the milky beige colored walls a sharp contrast to the window panes making the entire hallway look much larger than it truly was. Five things you could hear; five voices polyphonic reverberating in your head, a sound that you more felt than heard. 

“Stay with me, pal.” Sans snapped his phalanges in your face, moving his hand side to side. You fought to make your eyes trail after it. You squeezed your eyes shut and opened them again focusing on the bones in his hand trying to define the outline of the carpels sharpening your eyes. You moved your eyes to the window, tracing the tall arches and patterns. Sans watched your eyes as you did this, he clearly could see what you were doing. He dug around in his coat pocket grabbing a few clean napkins and taking your hands and working the oil off of them. As your eyes contracted he moved to pull your face towards his again and started wiping the back from the many  _ many _ places that it had been smeared across. “Buddy.” He said as your eyes focused on him again. “You okay? You with me?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I’m... here. I’m here.” Your voice didn’t feel like your own. “Sorry.”

“For what?” Sans asked wiping the black off of your upper lip. 

“I. Don’t know.” You said slowly, he flicked his eyes to yours and then back to what he was working on. “Sorry.” You repeated. 

“Don’t be.” He pat your shoulder pulling the napkin away from your face. It was dyed in black. You couldn’t even see the logo on it anymore. He crumbled it up and shoved it back into his pocket, probably with the intention to throw it away later but most likely will have forgotten about it by the time it goes through the washing machine. “You doing better? What’s up?”

You stood up straight now that you didn’t need to be his height, you rolled your head to the side. “I don’t know. That was weird. What was that all about?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“I dunno. You looked back at him. It’s weird, I feel like I should know what that was. Like, it was so clear while it was going on but now I...”

“Like forgetting a dream?”

“Yeah.”

“Like forgetting a person.”

“Huh?”

Sans mumbled it so quietly you didn’t hear him, well, no, you heard him but it was so quiet and such a strange thing to say you weren’t fully convinced that you heard him  _ right _ . 

“Nothing.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Do you need a break? Maybe wait out here, don’t throw yourself right back into socialization?”

“That’s... a good idea. I’m so tired.” 

You were ready to go outside, to just climb out the window and walk to the garden bench around the Not Papyrus Hedge and take a very long nap, but you felt a tug at your shirt and you looked down and saw Frisk behind you. And then you looked up and saw Asgore behind them. 

(You didn’t really think much about how weird it was that you noticed the child who only reached your hip before noticing the huge,  _ looming  _ goat man. That was weird. But you’ve dealt with weirder things in the last week or whatever. How long had it been anyway? Since you first met Sans and Grillby? A week? A couple of months? Who was keeping track of this time anyway.)

Frisk has a look of concern in their eyes, they tilted their head in a question. Asgore also had a look of concern and also tilted his head, it was honestly very endearing. He was huge and fluffy but cute like a kid. 

“I’m okay, Frisk.” You turned and kneeled down to their height smiling at them. “Just sleepy. Seeing Doctor Gaster always takes a lot out of me.”

Sans and Asgore tensed, light vanished from Sans’ eyes and Asgore rigid like a strong wind could blow him over. Frisk faltered, with a nervous smile they signed a question. “Gaster?”

“‘Gaster’? Who’s that?”

Sans and Asgore looked between each other. You didn’t understand anything. 

“You said ‘Doctor Gaster’.” Frisk signed back to you.

“Huh? Did I say something like that?” 

Frisk looked back at Asgore and Sans and looked back to you. You furrowed your eyebrows and as they raised their hands to sign something back to you Asgore put his hand on your shoulder. “Now, Frisk, why don’t you head back inside with your friends? Our friend here seems exhausted.”

Frisk watched him, clearly not buying into his shit at all. Still they nodded, gave you a pat on the head and a smile as if wishing you to feel better and moved back into Asgore's office. Before the door closed behind them you could see them climb onto their chair and Papyrus scoop them up into a tight hug. Whatever he was talking about he sure was animated. 

Watching Papyrus be Papyrus firmly put you back into your body. You stood up as the door clicked shut and turned to face Asgore and Sans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hoooo boy guys guess what!!!??? It's time for the actual plot to begin!!!!!!!!!! all the chapters up to this were preamble lmao now things start to get interesting


	9. Chapter 9

You lay on your bed looking at the ceiling. For the first time you noticed the water stain in the corner of your room. You never realized your ceiling was textured. On the far wall paint started chipping. You’d have to repaint soon. Covertly. Something told you that if Undyne were to find out that she would go ham and end up painting everything in your room, including the carpeting. There was a spiderweb in the corner of your window sill. A friendly little spider lived there, reminding you every time you got home from work that if you needed a snack her big sister ran a spider bake sale. You considered it once, pulling a flier from her web,  _ by spiders, for spiders, of spiders _ . After reading that you decided it probably wasn't something you’d be too interested in.

You rearranged your stuffed animals when you got home, setting them upright so that they wouldn't be uncomfortable as you slept.

You spoke to Sans and Asgore for hours and you still had no goddamn idea what the  _ fuck _ was going on. But you were frustrated. You were scared. Alternate timelines? Falling out of existence? What the  _ fuck _ was going on?

This wasn't common. How common  _ could _ it have been? Was this really a thing that happened to people? Why you, then? Was it because you spent a lot of time with monsters? In the far past humans feared monsters, didn't they? Could this be a kind of evolutionary mechanism to tell humans to stay away from them? 

Hadley was married to a monster. It didn't happen to  _ him _ did it? With the way it was affecting you he couldn't have hid something like that. So what was so special about you?

You raised your hand to your nose remembering the inky nosebleed that made your head spin.

W.D. Gaster.

The royal scientist, tasked with making an artificial soul to break the barrier and free the monsters. What did they tell you after that? He was successful? No, he put an artificial soul into something else... No, he failed and, and--

_ Shit _ ! You could feel it drift further away as you thought harder. You could barely remember the story Sans and Asgore told you. Dammit.  _ Dammit! _

You threw the covers off of you and walked upstairs and out the door sitting on the front step of the house with a frustrated huff. You wrapped your arms around yourself. It was cold out. But that didn't matter, did it? It wasn't comfortable but... It kept you grounded, right? The air nipped your nose and when you shut your eyes your eyelids felt cool. A snowflake fell onto your nose. You opened your eyes and looked down at it, then up as the midnight sky where flurries of snow drifted down to you illuminated by the street lamps. They sparkled against the sky, like the stars you could never see in a city like this.

“A-Aren’t you cold? You're going to get sick if you stay outside like this...” 

You turned, Alphys was standing in the doorframe watching you with a wrinkle in her brow and tired eyes. 

“Yeah, you're right.” You pushed yourself up and started walking down the steps to the sub door that lead into your room. Your room, the basement, was disconnected from the rest of the house, the entrance was below the steps to the front door. “Night.” You stepped down and jolted when your bare foot hit the thin layer of snow that formed on the stone. 

“W-Wait!” You turned back to her, she was fidgeting, pulling her hands nervously. “Why don't you just stay here for the night?” She had a motive. That much was obvious. Your room was literally thirty feet away. 

“I-I, uh, I couldn't sleep so I was gonna make some tea... Undyne sleeps like a rock and I like to drink with company.” 

You turned and walked up the steps slowly, your toes freezing in the snow, you smiled as you moved past her and into the house.

She brewed a pot of tea, pouring a cup for herself and then you. You got a generic cup, a travel mug bought at an airport for way too much money. She sipped her tea from a hand painted mug that read “cool friend” lopsided, around the circumference. It was charming.

It was surprising that she preferred to drink with company, her eyes were darting around and she’d been sweating bullets since you came in. She was a very anxious person but she usually had Undyne to bounce off of. But Undyne wasn't here right now. Undyne was upstairs, snoring loudly enough to shake the house. You don't think you'd be able to sleep with all that racket, you suddenly felt grateful for your disconnected basement room. 

Whenever she accidentally caught your eye she’d turn away. At this rate she’d become more red than yellow in a matter of minutes.

“S-so. Uh. Do you like anime...?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“H-Hey! Me too!” And you returned to silence.

Seeing her nervous made you nervous, and soon the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. She looked into her cup and threw her head back, drinking it in one go like liquid courage. 

“That was quite an episode you had earlier.”

“You wrapped your hands around the mug, looking down into it you swirled stray tea leaves at the bottom of the mostly empty cup. “You noticed?”

“Everyone did. We thought you wouldn’t want to be crowded though, we didn’t wanna overwhelm you or anything.”

“Thank you.”

“But are you doing alright? You were in pretty bad shape back there.”

“Y-Yeah.” You rubbed your eyes. “I don’t know what that was all about, Gaster always makes me really dizzy.”

“ _ Gaster? _ ” She tensed. You could hear an edge in her voice. “W-Where did you learn that name?”

As you suspected. She knew something. “I don’t know. It’s been bouncing around in my head for a while now, sometimes it just... comes out.” You pushed your mug to the side and leaned forward. “Whose Gaster?”

You could see her jaw clench. She looked away then back at you hardening her resolve. “Gaster... I used to be his assistant.

“I was the royal scientist before the barrier broke, but Gaster was the one before me. Me and Sans were his lab assistants. He was trying to make an artificial soul, we had six but we needed one more to bread the barrier and be freed. He built the core.

“But something happened, Sans said he fell into it. I wasn’t there, I don’t know how but... I believe Sans. After that incident Gaster stopped... existing. Somehow. Everything he did still existed and occasionally you’d see little hints at him, but he definitely wasn’t there. Everyone forgot him and when I was appointed  as royal scientist people acted as if I always had been. That I was there instead of the gap that Gaster left behind. 

“Some people still remember him, mostly people who were closely associated with him. Me, Asgore, Sans... I think some might remember him with a little push. He spent a lot of time with Grillby too.

“Even with his memory he stopped existing by all other accounts. Given the mysterious circumstances of his death it’s not  _ too _ surprising that it’s  _ him _ that’s doing this to you, but why is he doing this to  _ you _ ?”

“How can someone just stop existing? What’s the core?” You had so many questions, more than you had started with. 

“I...Hm...” She pursed her lips. I think... we should talk about this later. With Sans. And Asgore. I don’t know all the details myself, but...”

Without hesitation you whipped out your phone and called Sans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know i suck;;; I'm sorry its been so long, i really get inspiration to write fic in short bursts and usually it's spurred on by nice comments on my works but since I don't update in a long time people don't see the fic usually and thus people don't comment its a MESS.  
> still, here you go!!!!!! My long over due chapter 9 is out for you! I promise I'll try harder to write more often from now on, especially now that were getting into the thick of the plot. were gonna meet a new friend soon. a new best friend.


	10. Chapter 10

They spoke so quickly about so many things you didn’t understand, it almost started to feel like they forgot about you. You were back at the school, Asgore’s school. As it turns out Toriel worked there as well. Frisk attended classes there. You greeted them when you passed by, you noticed how Toriel pointedly refused to look at Asgore and how Sans clammed up when Frisk smiled at him. Asgore brought Alphys, Sans, and you to his office. The headmasters office, on the top floor and overlooking the courtyard through a beautiful glass clock. Kids started streaming across the grass, chatting with friends holding tightly onto their backpacks as they walked into class. It was a predominantly monster school. You would occasionally see a human child here and there, but the scale was clearly tipped. You wondered if Frisk had any friends in their class. You hoped so. They were a sweet kid.

You refocused your attention. You were here for a very specific purpose. Alphys told them what you’d asked her and her conclusion, they then relayed mostly information that you already knew. 

Sans put a bony hand on your shoulder and cleared his throat. “Hey. Mind if I borrow the human for a bit?” Asgore and Alphys looked at him and you.

“Yeah. Yes, I don’t see why not. Why don’t you take a break, i'm sure this is exhausting for you.” Asgore smiled, and as Sans guided you out of the office you saw them turning back to each other.

“You okay?” You asked him.

“I should be asking you that.” He grinned lazily at you. He was very good at keeping his cool, you had to give him that.

“What’s going on, Sans?” You shook your head. Your ears rung with the motion.

He was quiet as you walked down the halls. You could hear the pat of his slippers on the marble floor. “I... do have a theory. But it’s not something we could talk to Asgore and Alphys about.”

“Why not?” You looked up at him. The pinpricks of light had vanished from his eye sockets. 

“It’s something they wouldn’t remember.”

You took the elevator down three floors to the ground level. “What does that mean?”

The light returned to his eyes as he tilted his head away from you, brow bone furrowed he looked away as the elevator doors opened. “You’ll see.” You walked, you trailing just behind him, he slowed to a stop outside the door of a classroom. He turned to you and put his hands on your shoulders looking you in the eye for the first time that day. “Just... Whatever happens remember that Frisk is a good kid, allright? They’re a sweet kid who wouldn’t hurt a spider.”

Before you could ask what he was talking about he turned and opened the door to the classroom just slightly. He poked his skull in through the crack. “Hey, Tori.” He greeted. “Can I take Frisk with me for a minute?”

“Oh, Sans, hello! Sure, Frisk?” She smiled as Frisk waddled towards Sans. Their sweater was even bigger than usual. It was getting cold out. They were practically drowning in fabric. Such a cute visual juxtaposed by the ominous warning Sans gave you moments earlier served as a very bad omen.

“Hey, kid.” Sans grinned. He tussled their hair and them walked, you both followed him. Outside, to the garden Toriel attended, hidden behind tall hedges he turned to Frisk.

“Listen.” He said, turning back to you. “I think you have the same thing Frisk does.”

“That Frisk does?”

Frisk turned their head down to the ground in shame. They turned away from Sans. They fiddled with the sleeves of their sweater awkwardly. 

“Yeah.” Sans glanced over at them and then back to you. “No one except for them and me can remember it though.”

“What?”

_ I’m sorry. _ Frisk signed. Your stomach tightened. 

What...?

“Frisk here fell into the Underground and then someone... Not quite possessed them but...”

_ Their name was Chara _ . Frisk interrupted. Their cheeks were red and they looked like they wanted to cry. They looked so ashamed, you wanted to pull them into a hug and never let go.  _ They gave me suggestions. _

“Suggestions?”

_ They encouraged me to do bad stuff. Sometimes I... Followed their instructions. _

Sans out a comforting hand on their shoulder.  _ They...I... _ Their shoulders started to shake. And they moved their hands to wipe their eyes, cutting themselves off.

Sans stroked their hair soothingly. “They made Frisk do  _ really _ bad things.” He was trying not to say it out loud. You understood. “Eventually Chara kind of took over their body. Started forcing the kid to do things they didn't want to.” You heard a sob rip from Frisk's throat and your heart shattered.  _ I'm sorry. I'm sorry. _ They signed it over and over again. 

You stepped forward and gave Frisk's shoulder a squeeze. 

“But it wasn't Frisk. It was Chara. And I already forgave Frisk, even if they still haven't forgiven themselves.” Sans looked down and Frisk pulled away from both of your hands and hugged Sans tightly, sobbing freely into his coat. He continued to stroke their hair slowly. After a minute of silence he looked back at you. For the first time you noticed how perpetually tired he looked. “Chara was violent and cruel. They wanted to kill every monster and eventually every human too. They passed away still full of hatred and when Frisk was suddenly constantly around monsters they took over their body.”

You bit your lip. You didn't like where this was going. 

“I think Gaster is the same way.”

Your head was spinning. This was so much information to take in at one time. 

“Gaster fell into the core while still working on such an important scientific endeavor, this started happening after you started spending time with monsters regularly. I think that they managed to possess your and Frisk's bodies because they had lingering emotions when they died. Their souls were too determined to disappear with them so they ended up with you.” 

You watched him blankly. “Chara’s soul stayed around to kill monsters.”

“Yes.”

“But since they died their soul had to move to a different body.”

“Yes.”

“So it ended up with Frisk.”

“Yes.”

“And forced Frisk to hurt people because Chara was so determined to do the same?”

This was so much to take in. Almost too much. Souls could transfer between bodies? Did that mean that souls had a will to live separate from their body? For souls to be able to exist outside of a body and have its own will after the body dies does that mean that it's not actually linked to the host?

Does that mean that souls have a separate conscious from the person?

“What does Gaster want?”

“Hard to say.” The light vanished. It reappeared. “If I had to guess I’d say he wants to finish his work. Making an artificial soul. Chara wanted to hurt monsters and Frisk was with monsters. But Gaster wanted to make a soul to break the barrier.”

“But there's no barrier anymore.”

“Yeah. Chara wanted to do something and Frisk was in the perfect circumstances. But you’re not. So we have no idea what Gaster wants to do with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day talk about overcompensation lol


	11. Chapter 11

The building that should have said “Regal” now said “Spider”. It was too cruel that where Hadley’s bakery had been a new one had open. You felt like you were being mocked. You couldn’t even imagine how Hadley felt. His apartment was  _ in _ the bakery. It must have been awful to walk through a new bakery where his should have been. But the new owner was a monster, you felt slightly comforted knowing that he and his wife would be safe. Hadley told you it was fine, that the new owner was sweet if not a bit scary, but you knew that he wanted his bakery back. Your heart broke for hi.

But you werent there to see him, not today. Today you needed to talk to Frisk.

You wanted to meet them alone, without the preying eyes of Toriel or Sans. You needed to talk to them about something hard, you knew having others there as witness would just put the pressure on their shoulders. 

Toriel, being the doting mother she was, usually wanted to go out with Frisk. Frisk told her that you’d be with you and offered to take care of the grocery shopping while they were out as an added good measure. They jogged towards you, holding a coin purse of money tightly in their hand. 

“Hey, kid.” You nudged them. You started picking up Sans’ nickname for them.

_ Hello _ . They signed. They looked around you into the spider bakery window and waved at the new owner. 

“I feel like your sweater gets bigger and bigger everytime I see you.” They silently giggled and waved their arms, too long sleeves flapping after them. God. This kid was literal sunshine. Their face was flushed from the cold they rubbed their sleeve under their nose to warm it up. It was seriously getting cold out. “Let’s get going.” You smiled, taking their hand. Even through your gloves you could tell their hands were cold. 

You walked together mostly silent. You were trying to figure out a way to breach the topic you had wanted to discuss with them. They were trying to figure out how to answer without crying when you did.

You went to a small supermarket on 23rd street, for such a major area of the city it was shocking that there was no path mart anywhere around. There was a whole foods on 24th, next to the high school, but Toriel was a coupon mom. She gave Frisk just enough money to buy what they needed from a normal supermarket plus an extra five dollars for a snack if they got hungry. So you went into the non-chain market. 

It was pretty old fashioned looking, all wooden planks and supports none of the white tiles and illuminate refrigerators that you were used to seeing. “Lemme see that list.” You held out your hand and Frisk put a cute little notebook into your hand. The writing was elegant and in the margins Toriel had doodled cute pictures subtitled with  _ ‘I love you’ _ s and embarrassingly bad puns. 

Toriels puns were different from Sans’ puns, even though they were of the same caliber the way Toriel shone when she told them radiated and would make you want to laugh all the same. Sans’ puns were just. Bad.

“Okay, first let’s grab some fruit.” As you two strode towards the crates of fruits you read out the specific kinds Toriel requested. “Apples, bananas, and pears.” Frisk darted between boxes grabbing three of each as you listed them. They sure were quick on their feet. They were breathing just heavier when they returned to you fruits assorted into tied bags. You ruffled their hair and they beamed. Their smile was like the light of God and you felt like you had been truly blessed. Amen.

You hummed scanning the list. Next up was beans and other things usually found in cans. “Can you handle this, Frisk?” You asked them. “I’m gonna go grab a basket.” They nodded vigorously and darted off. Your lips quirked upwards as you turned to the front of the store. 

When you walked into the canned goods aisle you saw Frisk, cans piled high in their arms struggling to balance them. “Nice one, champ.” You lowered the basket to their height letting them drop them in. They breathed a sigh of relief as their arms were freed. 

You walked off towards the snack aisle. Toriel had said that they could buy one bag of chips or a box of cookies, but Toriel wasn’t here right now. You were Goat Mom now. And you were gonna good your all to satisfy this kids sweet tooth. You bought them two boxes of cookies plus a chocolate bar at the cash register. They were practically vibrating in excitement before they had even eaten any of it. You bought a pack of gum and helped the cashier bag your groceries. You grabbed them first but Frisk insisted they take some.  _ I’m strong enough to handle it! _ They puffed out their chest in pride and stuck out their hands grabbing at the plastic bags. They looped them around their elbows, freeing their hands so they can sign to you. You both knew an important conversation was going to come up soon. They knew they would need their hands free for it.

You bought two slices from the dollar pizza. You and the owner were tight.

You ate as you walked, you went towards the R train all the way at 6th avenue, at the entrance to the park. They turned towards the stairs descending to the platform but you pat their head and pointed forward towards an empty bench in the park. They nodded, finishing their pizza and tossing the paper plate into the trash can nearby. 

You moved across the path to the bench. There were few people there, a rare occurrence in this city. They curled their fists into the hem of their sweater, knowing what was coming. 

“Frisk.” You said suddenly. Their head whipped to face you. “Could you tell me about Chara?”

Frisk chewed their lip and pulled at their sleeves fabric.  _ They were really bad. _ They signed.  _ They really hated people. Monsters, humans, everything. They... They wanted to hurt them. They fell into the Underground and Toriel and Asgore adopted them as their child. I don't know why they wanted to hurt anyone... The monsters were all so nice to them. They treated them like a second prince.  _ Frisk took a deep breath. You could see it was really hard for them to talk about it.  _ They made me do bad things. I couldn't stop them. I... _ Tears were starting to well in their eyes. Poor kid. Their shoulders started to shake. You pat their head in what you hoped was a comforting gesture. 

“Sans said that you two were the only ones who remembered. And all of the monsters were freed... How is that possible if Chara...?”

They learned their face into your side and wrapped their arms around you.  _ I have a power.  _

“A power?”

_ I... Yeah. I never had it before I fell but... It's called reset. I can reset things from “save points” and do things differently. _

“So, you've been living a video game.”

_ Kind of, yeah. Since I could reset I could go back and do things over and over again. So once Chara did it for me. That's when they were in control and made me... Do the things that I did.  _

“But in the end you beat them!” You pulled them into your side and kissed the top of their head. It broke your heart to see such a wonderful child so upset. “I'm proud of you.”

But what did that  _ mean _ ?

If Gaster was to you as Chara was to Frisk did that mean you could do the same thing Frisk could? Reset? You didn't know what a save point was. You didn't understand. But it was time to stop asking Frisk questions. They were torn up and if the angel looked upset for any longer you'd break. You lifted their face a wiped the tears from under their eyes with the pad of your gloves. You smiled at them. Soft and delicate. You leaned down and planted a kiss on their forehead and stood up, offering them your hand. The sky was growing darker. “Let's get you home, okay? Don't want Toriel worrying, do we?” 

You rode the train with them, they fell asleep on your shoulder as you rolled past the skyline of the city becoming night. They snored slightly and you combed your fingers through their hair. You knew it was time to do something extremely stupid. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you I wasn't gonna abandon this fic

When the monsters were freed from the underground a major investigation happened at the base of Mount Ebott. The mountain was closed off by police tape and officers pointedly directed traffic away from it. You didn't know what it was exactly that they were investigating but they were doing it. The investigation had all but stopped by now there was still police tape around but no officers save for the handful on either side of the mountain in their cars eating doughnuts. No one was allowed into the mountain.

So of course that was your cue to go directly to it.

You kneeled below the ropes and followed the path through the thickest part of the woods. You couldn't risk getting caught. Even if neither cop could see you from their car and there were no civilians anywhere near the mountain at all you aired in the side of caution. So you moved between the trees. 

The path was full of loose stones and dry dirt, every time you took a step forward a cloud of dust rose from below your feet and a rock tumbled down. It was a very dangerous path. You first had wondered why no one had ever looked closely enough at the mountain to realize there was an entire civilization living under it, but if the dirt path was any way to tell it wasn't surprising that no one ever climbed it. You'd have to be stupid to do such a thing. 

You seriously couldn't escape how dumb you are right now. Idiot. What are you doing? Why are you climbing this mountain?

You heard thumps of raindrops hitting the leaves of the trees above you. Clouds had been hanging in the sky all day, it was a grey day and the path became muddy as you continued your ascent. 

You reached the end of the trees. You climbed. 

Signage began appearing, warning signs next to rusting chain link fences that spoke of dangerous cliffs and disappearing children. Before the monsters emerged from the mountain everyone believed a child killer lived up here. When you were in middle school your friends dared each other to climb the mountain. You never made it far, you always climbed up the base of the mountain to prove that you weren't scared but you never went farther up. You were scared. But it was a matter of proving that you weren't in order to establish dominance among a group of twelve year olds. If you did climb to the top would you have been in Frisk's position? Frisk did such an incredible job and accomplished am impossible feat. Would you have been able to do that? Probably not. You would never have been able to free the monsters on your own. 

Damn. Why are you reminiscing now? The soles of your sneakers slapped in the muddy path sending it splashing in all directions. Why were you reviewing your life like it was the end of it? You were acting like you were dying. That should he a sign to turn back now.

But you didn't. 

Because you were a god damned idiot. 

A loose rock slipped out from under your foot, you fell forward mud splashing on your shirt. You caught yourself on your forearms, the mud was grimey. The dirt must have been so fine for you to still be able to feel individual grains like sand. It sent a chill up your spine. You looked up at the rest of the mountain still left to scale. You took a deep breath and pushed yourself up. You tried to wipe the mud off of your arms as you continued up. 

The chain fences were scalable, but wet. With the mud on the soles if your shoes and the water on the fence was a recipe for disaster. You fell forward and so you could catch yourself, but if you fell back on this steep mountain side made completely up of jagged cliffs you could face serious injury. 

There was also a hole cut at the bottom of the fence in a place, you could probably slide under it. But the edges were jagged and rusted. When was your last tetanus shot? You really didn't remember. 

How did Frisk even end up underground? Getting  _ up  _ here was hard enough. You wondered if they had a disregard for their own life. That would explain a lot. But the thought threatened to break your heart into a thousand pieces. You would have to ask Toriel when you got out, you wanted to be there for them if that was truly the case. 

You ended up crawling below the fence. 

The drop was really far right? It went from the top of the mountain and deep enough to create an entire civilization underground. Your feet slowed to a stop as you realized it was completely possible that you wouldn't even survive the fall. 

_ What am I doing? _ You remembered as a child you never got past the fence during your tests of courage. You continued scaling the mountain.  _ What am I doing? _

After the fence the path quickly ended. People weren't supposed to be past the fence so of courses the path would stop. There was a trail of dead grass that lead further up decorated with beer cans and artifacts of a college party spot. It would make a nice place for a fire pit after all. You knew Hadley spent his college days drinking and partying in the junk yard with his friends. This place wasn't so different you supposed.just the difference between a natural and artificial environment. 

The trail of cans was your only guide, so you followed them as your new bread crumbs. 

The mountain started to level out, you pulled yourself over a dulled edge where the cans stopped. You were at the mouth of a cave. There was a bonfire unlit in the center. It was as you expected. Large rocks had been pushed around it, you could easily picture students laughing and drinking and cursing the world. The kind of place the outcasts would have gathered and decide to run away from it all. 

You put your hands on your knees and huffed. This was getting exhausting. You wiped the sweat from your forehead and raised your head. The cans had lead you and stopped here, but where now? You leaned back popping your spine with the most refreshing stretch youd had in a long time. With your hands on your hips and still breathing hard you surveyed the inside of the cave. It went farther in towards the right of it, you walked forward and leaned down to the new opening. You saw light streaming in from the other side. You crawled through it. 

You popped your head out the other hand and wiggled. It was a much tighter fit, your heart raced at the thought that you were stuck. After enough fighting you did pull yourself out expending more energy in the process than your entire climb up to that point.

It opened to the edge of a cliff, an easy path up. You flopped onto your back and heaved. It was a narrow cliff. Lying down your arm dangled over the edge. The sun shone down on you. What time was it? It had to be at least three by now. There had to be better ways to scale a mountain. You'd been climbing for, what, eight hours? At this point it was more about pride than actually getting to the top. After coming this far you weren't going to go all the way back down to find a better method. 

When you woke up, the sun was starting to set. 

Clouds started rolling in from the city and cool wind whipped at your clothes. The heavy clouds weren't at Mt. Ebbot yet, you could still see the sky turning red and purple as the sun sunk below the horizon. It looked like a bit one. It looked like one hell of a storm. 

You sat up and slowly stood sidling along the edge of the cliff. Rock occasionally crumbled and fell from below your feet down the steep mountainside and into the thick forest below. You wanted to get to the top before the storm caught you. 

You climbed up the cliff side when the distance was small enough for you to jump to. Your feet scrambled with no supports to hold on to and you grunted and heaved as you pulled your entire body weight up with your arms. You stumbled when you got to the new level, kneeling down before standing up and straightening your back. Your spine popped and you surveyed your remaining ascent. You were doing well, almost at the top. You took a large gulp of water and walked forward scanning the wall for something for you to grab onto. As you wrapped your hand around a protruding rock you felt a drop of water hit your face.

Above you the clouds had rolled in. You could no longer see the sky as it turned it's array of colors. You felt another pelt your hand, a flash of lightning and the crash of thunder and you were caught in a downpour. 

You hurried to ascend the wall in front of you. Your hand slipped as the rocks turned muddy. You'd have to go quickly. You heaved yourself up, jumping from rock to rock now not wasting time on climbing. 

As the ground leveled you waled towards the most obvious looking path. It was amidst trees, no forest by any means, but the pine would have to protect you from the rain a  _ little, _ right? The path was loose with stones sliding down the steep slope behind you every step you took. It was decorated with ominous pine trees and deep holes that fell into jagged stones that threatened you from below. The path itself wasn't nearly as steep as the others you had taken to come up here, but the rain made your footing uneasy and you found yourself holding the trees as you past them. You had a very specific hole to throw yourself into. It wouldn't do if you fell into one of these and died before your mission had even started. 

Lightning flashed striking a tree above you. You gasped as it fell creaking towards you, you dove forward to miss being squashed by the felled trunk. It rolled down knocking the edge of the cliff down with it. You scrambled up and ran forward to avoid the fall. Stones crumbled and thr trunk made booming noises as it rolled down and down. The falling cliff got closer. You ran forward and jumped, catching the edge of the cliff above you. You struggled to pull yourself up, flailing legs causing scraped knees. The cliff had collapsed below you. If you fell you'd face certain death. You pulled yourself up, your chest met the cliff edge as your hand slipped from the smooth wet rock. You desperately reached out to grab a tree root protruding from the side.

You swung. You hit your head pretty hard. 

Your hands were shaking as you climbed the root and reached for stone again. You rubbed your face into your shoulder blood flowed from your temple and into your right eye. You grit your teeth as you continued to climb anyway.

You heaved your body up onto flat earth. You made a beeline for the cave before you. Vines roped around the stone and above the ground, you slid your bag off of one shoulder searching through it for your first aid kit. Your eye was still screwed shut from the blood that tried to sneak into it. Your head was pounding and you wiped your temple with the palm of your gloved hand. Your climbing gloves were black but when you pulled your hand away you could still see the smeared blood against the roughed up pads. 

You glanced around the cave for a place to sit down. You really needed to take care of this. You were covered in scrapes and scratches that dirt and sand had already got into. The adrenaline had kept the pain numbed before, but now that your heard had stopped pounding and you were protected by a stone roof you felt your open wounds throbbing. 

You wished that Toriel was here. She could help you get cleaned up. You had no idea how to use any of the tools in the discount first aid kit you bought from the sporting good store that morning. You didn't even know what it  _ was _ . You tried to force it from your mind, you tried to stop thinking about how you would dig into your wounds to remove the pebbles and shards from your (probably already infected) gashes and cuts. 

You stopped thinking about it when you tripped and fell. 

And fell.

And fell.

And fell.

You spun mid air from the darkness below you to see the opening of the hole grow smaller and smaller, the only light you had escaping from you. You scrambled in the air like you were trying to catch yourself, but on  _ what _ ? 

_ Was this it? Was this a mistake? Oh, God you weren't gonna survive this! Why did you decide to come here?! Are you stupid?! You're gonna crack tour skull and die here, your body is gonna be in a glorified ditch forever and none of your friends will ever find out what happened to you! No! No, no, no! You don't want to die! You don't...! _

Your back hit the ground, you let out a choked gargle as your world turned black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So i'm not super satisfied with this chapter? That's why it took so long because I kept writing and rewriting it... I really wanted to make the reader feel more desperate, like in that chapter of "I Need An Adult" by fulgadrum here on AO3 which was also a huge source of inspiration for me when I was working on this chapter
> 
> Also apparently I didn't make it clear before, but just so we all know: this fic is post genocide! This fic takes place after frisk has completed EVERY POSSIBLE ENDING, including the twenty-five (?) different neutral endings. In this fic frisk has played and reset the game for the better part of ~500 times. As in theyve played every way, killed every one, created every circumstance, seen every dialogue. Thank god for that file of all undertale strings (lol) I'm glad I have every dialogue ready so I don't have to replay the game a thousand times. So expect some EXTREMELY obscure dialogue references. References to things like what flower says when you change the soundtrack or what doggo says when you kill every dog but him. When I say frisk has played every route I mean frisk has played EVERY route
> 
> As always I love love love getting praise on this fic and when I put a fic aside and forget about it seeing comments on previous chapters always gets me hyped and ready to keep writing it!!! So many people are telling me that this is their favorite ut fic and aaaa <3 I'm so glad that so many if you have stuck with me even with my ridiculously inconsistent updates and constantly fluctuating tone!!! I promise I'm gonna try to be better about updating this fic regularly! But forgive me if its still a long wait between chapters! I'm very busy all the time 


	13. Chapter 13

Your entire body felt like lead. It took all of your energy to open your eyes, the corners of your vision was dark and you couldn't process any of the visual information that came in. You let your eyes flutter shut again. You wish you could see the sky. Every time your eyes shut you fell asleep. What time was it? How long had you been out anyway?

You stated up. You could see the outline of the hole you fell into but light didn't stream in. It was inside a cave, the light down here was inexplicable at best. 

You slowly– very slowly– pushed yourself up onto your forearms. Pain shot across your entire body. Figures. You just fell into a mountain after all, of course you'd be a bit banged up after that. You whimpered as the pain travelled. You had half a mind to just drop back down into the bed of golden flowers and wait for them to grow over you. A coffin of daisies and vines. It would be pretty. A shame no one else would ever see it. Your Adam's apple bobbed as you took a gulp, squeezing your eyes shut. You opened them again, resetting your jaw raising your eyebrows, gave your face a real stretch. Your left eye opened with some work, crusty. The dried blood had glued your eyelashes onto each other. You raised your hand to your face and worked the blood out of your eye. You used your free hand to push yourself upright into a sitting position. 

Your fingers crawled up your face to your forehead blindly prodding searching for your head wound. You took a sharp breath when your hands made contact. It was dry. It had scabbed over while you were unconscious. God, just how long were you out?

You turned your torso, bruises pressing up against ribs you grit your teeth. You needed to find your bag. You had a compact mirror with you, you probably couldn't inspect your bruises without it. You landed on your back. There were probably many out of sight. 

Your eyes scanned the flower bed around you. Some of the things you were wearing were strewn about, the water bottle from your pack, contents from your medkit laid near the cracked box that held them before, your bag was a bit away from you, open. Most of its contents seemed to have come out during your fall. You crawled towards it, picking up the items in your path.

There were letters. 

Like, handwritten letters next to ripped open envelopes. Greeting cards. 

A bunny greeting card.  _ I  _ hop _ you're doing well! _ The inside covers were absolutely filled with handwritten words. There wasn't any room left, the writer had even whited out the pre printed words to scribble over them. The handwriting was completely illegible. You flipped over the card. Even the back cover was covered in writing.  _ To my friend Flowey _ ...  _ I wish you could have come with us to the surface ... The sky is so beautiful ... I haven't met any flowers as cool as you ... I've made friends but I still miss you ... If only you had hands and could write back to me ... Oh but then the postal service doesn't go from the underground to the surface anyway ... Your cool friend Papyrus.  _

Papyrus...?

“Gee, that was a pretty nasty fall you had there!” 

You spun around, rolling over your head shot up looking around despite the way your bones creaked in protest. “Wh-”

“Don't be scared, it's only me!” 

A flower appeared. It leaned into your face.

“Ah!” You cried, scrambling back away from it. You felt a vine wrap around your wrist and you fell back again. The corners of your open mouth tugged down in horror. “Wh-?!”

“Hey, come now! That's no way to treat a new friend, is it?” It leaned closer to you. It's face above yours, you could see something dark slithering behind its smile. “Man, I haven't seen a human down here in quite some time. What are you doing here? Most of the monsters went up to the surface but who knows how many creeps decided to stay down here?” It's eyes flicked between yours. 

“I mean, who  _ knows _ what could have happened if someone  _ else _ found you! You know?”

Something shot out of the ground. It scraped your arm as it cut through the vine holding you down, it was... A bone? It wasn't a real bone, it was a cartoonist interpretation of what a bone looks like to someone who's never seen an anatomically accurate diagram of a human skeleton before. A femur that some goth middle schooler would draw on the corner of all his classwork. It wasn't entirely opaque either. It mostly was, it  _ looked _ real enough, but there was an aura around it. An aura of Very Not A Real Bone. The flower reeled back in shock and whipped its head(?) around. Another bone shot from the ground near the base of its stem.Narrowly missing its face, several severed petals floated in the air. A third bone shot through them in the air. 

“Leave them alone, Flowey.”

“Gr-” Flowey spun his head around away from you. His stem still distorted carefully bent avoiding the attacks. “Wh-What’re you back here for?!”

“I'm here for the human.” Sans hand was extended, a blue ring in his eye and his jaw clenched tightly even in his perpetual smile. 

“Eugh. Whatever, take them!” Flowey turned back to you. “But I'm sure we'll meet again.” He sunk into the ground.

Your heart pounded watching where he disappeared as if he would return if you looked away for a moment. Sans’ hand clasped around your forearm. You could tell he was angry. 

“What the hell are you doing down here?” 

“I...”

“You've been gone for  _ three days _ . We've been calling you but you never picked up, why are you down here?”

“I-”

“You can't just disappear like that! Come on we're going back, I know a-”

“No!” You shook him off of you stepping back. “No. I did too god damn much to get here to just leave now!”

“Why would you even want to come here?!’

“I  _ need  _ answers, Sans!” He flinched but listened. “I don't know what the hell is going on or who this Gaster guy is but  _ apparently _ he's a big deal and  _ apparently _ he's like, haunting me or something! It's getting in the way of my  _ life _ , Sans! I'm getting these dreams every night and my head is constantly hurting and I barely feel things when I touch them and my blood isn't always red anymore! What the hell is that all about?! I'm the one being affected by it so don't I deserve to know why?!” Every word that came out of your mouth mad his eyes just a bit darker. He was sweating. His body leaned back but his hand still hovered outstretched towards you. “You can go back if you want but I'm not leaving.”

He straightened himself and held out his hand to you, you looked at it cautiously and took it. He pulled you to a stand. You could see the concern in his hollow eye sockets. For a being with no flesh or muscle he was much more expressive than you would have expected. 

He looked pensive watching you. He was quiet, glancing over your injuries. The fresh cut on your arm and the older injuries on your face and peppered across your body. He didn't have any healing magic. That was Toriel’s division. But he couldn't just... Leave you. Flowey was still here. Other monsters probably were too. You were already injured. If he left you know he'd lose track of you. You lived in the human world. Who knows what could happen to you down here? You didn't know your way around. 

“Fine. But I'm coming with you.”

“What?”

“If you want to find Gaster it'll be easier if you're with someone who knows their way around, right? Besides,” He put a smile on his face. He clearly didn't want to do this. “It's more fun to travel with a friend.” 

You watched him carefully. He wasn't planning anything, was he...? To make you think he'd support you but warp you back home? You shut your eyes silencing the voices in your head. No. No! Sans had never lied to you before. You were essentially defenseless down here, and he was able to scare off Flowey. Sans is your friend and just cares about your safety. He wouldn't pull such an underhanded trick. 

He stepped around you and started gathering your things from the ground putting them back into your bag. It'd be easier to treat your wounds with someone else's help. His eyes lingered on the letters on the ground. He tore his eyes away and stood slinging your bag over his shoulder and walking back to you. 

You couldn't help the smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. You reached out and wrapped your fingers through his and squeezed.

“Let's get going then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even gonna say that I'll be better with regular uploading because let's be honest. I'm lying.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey make sure you read the end notes, its important this time!!!!!

“This place is so much quieter now.”

Sans eyed you. “Yeah. It sure is.” He agreed.

Your foot fallls echoed off of the stone walls around you, this place was absolutely deserted. It was chilling. It reminded you of that day in middle school when you and your friends hid out in the bathroom after class and realized way too late that the janitor had left and you were locked inside for the night. You had felt a bizarre mixture of ownership and terror that day. The way your stomach twists in knots when you do something you shouldn’t be doing but the feeling in your gut isn’t enough to make you stop. Like the first time you stayed up after your parents had gone to bed. Nerves that brought both anxiety and excitement. 

The underground being so desolate... it was a state that you should never have seen. 

Many of the puzzles in the ruins had already been disarmed. Probably for the best, you’ve seen movies, you know what happens to people who solve puzzles incorrectly. That’s how you get dozens of spears through you from every odd angle. When you approached an inactive puzzle you could still see Sans’ eyes tracing the solution. You wanted to ask if he’d been here before. He probably had. How big could this place possibly be? It was only the size of the mountain. 

There were some puzzles that were still active. A bridge of spikes, for instance. 

Your legs moved more on their own than under your command, like typing a password for the millionth time. You didn't think about the way you maneuvered through the spikes, you moved with such certainty that Sans ended up following  _ you _ . 

Was it weird? Yeah. But you tried to not think about it. Questioning muscle memory, relying on your brain over your body, made you forget. It wasn't terrible when you started to question whether you had written your phone number correctly, but in this situation where it potentially meant impalement you wanted to get through with as little resistance as possible. 

You could feel Sans’ eyes tracing the line of your steps, although you had grown used to the feeling of him watching you his gaze was precise. You could feel hair rise when he stopped at the base of your neck. You wondered what he saw. When he looked at you did he truly see you? Or did he see Gaster? 

You wondered if you were more Gaster than you at this point. 

“You know...” Sans spoke up as you walked down a long yet effectively empty corridor. “I could just bring you to the lab. I know a shortcut, after all.” 

“Sorry.” You looked away from him eyeing the vine covered walls and the obviously conspicuous pillar coming closer to you. “I'd rather just walk. Maybe I'll figure something out by going through this entire place on foot, you know?” Sans’ hand was still outstretched, glowing, ready to take you on the shortcut he promised you. 

“That so.” He put his hand into his hoodie pocket, facing forward again. “If we’re gonna walk anyway let's stop by my old place in Snowdin. I’ll even show you the old Grillby’s while we’re there.”

Considering the immensity of your situation, taking a break to muse about Sans’ life before you were a part of it was probably for the best. A distraction, but certainly a way to lighten the mood. It couldn’t get much more bleak after all. Every step you took felt one step closer to an impending execution. How did Frisk deal with any of this? You don’t even have a main villain to look for, but everything felt wrong. Coming underground from the surface felt like crossing the threshold out of reality. How the  _ fuck _ were there trees in the underground? With no  _ sunlight?? _ You almost wanted to take a sample onto the surface and compare it to the trees behind your old elementary school. But that was probably a waste of time. Who cares about that? The way your mind was running felt like you were trying to avoid the pressing topic at hand. 

You sighed deeply.

* * *

 

There was a home at the end of the ruins. It was cute, quaint almost. It was warm and homely, it vaguely reminded you of the smell of pine all throughout Hadley’s apartment. You wondered how Hadley was doing. 

You walked around a gnarled tree and headed for the entrance. You noticed a twinkle as you passed through the door.

It smelled like cinnamon inside. It absolutely  _ reeked _ of cinnamon inside. It was almost overwhelming. It smelled like pastries and cinnamon, vanilla and butter. Your mouth watered. You went straight for the descending staircase.

“Wait, hold on a sec.” Sans called out to you. He was standing at the top of the staircase, you turned back to look up at him. “Out of the ruins there’s a forest, it’ll take awhile to get to Snowdin on foot. Maybe you should stop and rest up here?” 

You looked at him, and then back down the stairs. You were quiet for a long time. You really didn’t want to waste any time. 

“I mean, my shortcut offer is still on the table too.”

You shook your head. You yourself werent entirely sure why you were so adamant about walking. Maybe you just wanted to clear your head? The underground, so far hidden from the sun, was very cool. The cold air in your lungs helped keep you calm. Or something. 

It briefly hit you that walking might not be your choice in the first place. With the amount of control that Gaster has already been shown to have over you... you couldn’t necessarily tell where you ended and Gaster began. You think about the free will paradox. Was any of this your own choice? Or had it all been predestined? Was Gaster the omnipotent force? Were you truly human, or a puppet in his hands?

“I want to stay.”

* * *

 

There were two bedrooms, and still Sans chose to sleep on the couch. That was fine. You needed a moment to yourself. 

You decided to take residency in the room closest to the stairs. There were shoes of varying sizes and drawings of flowers and people and monsters (was that Toriel?), you found an old stick and gross bandage discarded behind one of the beds. 

You cried that night. 

It was so overwhelming. 

Everything was always so overwhelming. You hugged the pillow to your chest and cried into the mattress. The weight of your actions had finally descended upon you. You jumped into a fucking pit. You didn’t tell any of your friends and then you went and jumped into a fucking pit. This house, this  _ home, _ was so warm. So loving. You could tell what kind of person the owner must have been. It was probably Toriel. This place looked like the physical manifestation of pinterest. You could feel a kind of love radiating from everything. Surrounded by this affection meant for anyone other than you... you’re filled with a crushing loneliness. Even with Sans accompanying you, it was a loneliness that just... couldn’t be remedied with a person being there with you. You wanted to scream.

Why did this happen to you? You just wanted to work at a cute little bakery with your manager who didn’t look the part, you just wanted Toriel to come in asking for macarons to celebrate perfect attendance in her 3rd period literature class. You never asked for a complicated life. A life of peaceful tranquility was all you wanted. And what happens instead? You jump into a fucking hole like a goddamn idiot. And for  _ what _ ? You didn’t even know what you were trying to achieve by being here. What were you even looking for? You were drawn to the opening of mount ebott. 

You wonder if that was Gasters doing too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah yeah i know i sUCK.  
> anyway im considering making a chapter for hadley and searyth or something?? or maybe a spinoff story>> people took to them a LOT more than i ever expected. even me, they were supposed to be minor one shot kiddos but even im growing just a little bit attatched to them. idk. what do yall think? whod be into a hadley spinoff story??


	15. Chapter 15

The exit to the ruins was burned. Charred.  _ Everywhere.  _ The embossed symbol on the overbearing door was black and ashes scattered across the foot of it. There were scraps of burned clothing and miscellaneous items littered around. 

“I thought Toriel only used healing magic.” 

“How do you know that this is Toriel’s doing?”

“I don't know.” You stepped to the door, running your fingers across the surface. The pads of your fingers were grey, coated in the ashes that had been lying dormant on it for god  _ knows _ how long. “But I know it was.”

Sans was quiet behind you for a long while. You didn't like this. You didn't like how he watched his steps around you. You didn't like him not trusting you. You knew it wasn't necessarily about you, rather about our mysterious Gaster whose only partially possessing you, but it made you felt gross. Grimey. You didn't like feeling untrustworthy. Sans had always seemed to know more than he let on, from the moment you met him you  _ knew _ that he was keeping the exact extent of his knowledge hidden from you and the world around you. Did he know about this whole Gaster situation even before you? 

Probably.

“She uses fire magic too. She usually only uses it for cooking when she doesn't feel up to cleaning the stove top. A woman after my own heart.”

_ Ah _ . You thought.  _ Now I see.  _

You pressed the center of the embossed symbols pushing the door open. They were heavy, you needed both arms and all your weight to open them. You squinted at the sudden gust of cold wind blowing in your face. You shivered. Crap it was cold. 

Sans held the door for you to slip through, behind you both it slowly slammed shut, the sound of impact echoed throughout the woods sprawling in front of you. It felt  _ final _ in a way. Like after such an impact you could never return. 

“Heh. I remember this old place.” Sans grinned, a type of melancholy look tracing over his features, “You know, Tori and I met here. Well, kinda. We never met face to face but we talked a bunch.” He rasped his knuckles against the door. “Knock knock.”

“Who's there.” You humor him.

“Dishes.”

“Dishes who?”

“Dishes a very bad joke.”

You looked at him. Your eyes burned through them. You wanted to spit up bile. 

He laughed good naturedly, smacked your back a few good times. “Ah, you're just like Papyrus. No taste in comedy. Still Tori laughed and  _ laughed _ like she hadn't heard a better joke in her whole damn life. Probably hadn't, in fact. Asgore, bless his soul, is a sweetheart but has no sense of comedic timing. Most of the humans that fell down here weren't particular jokesters either. I mean, you could imagine. Frisk doesn't even talk. The rest of 'em were pretty similar.”

“Not everyone is as good at covering up depression with memes as you and I, my friend.” 

You started walking through the path in the woods that seemed to otherwise stretch for miles either way. You sunk slightly with each step, the top layer of snow hadn't frozen over or anything. The snow looked perpetually fresh. The cave really wasn't high enough to accommodate clouds much less precipitation. Perhaps if you were more scientifically inclined you'd want to investigate the anomaly. But you weren't. You had a specific goal. Kind of. You have a general goal. No time to waste. 

“Oh man. Dude, look.” Sans out his hand on your shoulder blade and pointed at a small hut-like structure. He does up slightly, moving past you and maneuvering past a conveniently shaped lamp and started checking the stop out, running his hands over the wood and looking under it. “It's my old sentry station. I had to hang out here all day and watch for humans. I wasn't really into it, woulda preferred any other job in the world, but Pap really loved being a sentry... He was obsessed with capturing a human and getting into the Royal guard. Have I told you this story yet?”

“He has.”

He laughed. It was a deep rumble buried in his ribcage. “This is where we met the kid for the first time actually. Really sweet, that kid. They wasted a bunch of time just to make Papyrus happy about finding a human.” He picked his head up from under the points surface. “Oh snap, my ketchup bottles are still here!” He stood up, a ketchup bottle in hand. He threw his head back and squeezed the bottle. No ketchup came out. He looked at it and shook the bottle. “Ah, crap. Empty. Ah well.” He dropped it back under the station. 

You wondered if he actually missed being down here. There were probably a lot of memories among these trees.

* * *

 

Rainbow lights around the sign flashed,  _ 'Welcome to Snowdin!’ _ It was a cozy little place. A cute town with cute log cabins and a cute little sparkle next to a cute little box. Behind you Sans sighed almost dreamily. “Ah man. I'm actually back...” There was a sadness to his eyes.

“This is where you lived?”

“Yeah. Don't much like seeing it so deserted though. Don't like seeing it deserted much at all.” His words trailed off, you knew he was thinking of something that he'd deny if you asked. “Oh man, Grillby’s proper.” You followed his line of sight. Grillby's old place was  _ identical _ to the one nearby your place. If you weren't looking at it right now you might have thought that he just picked up the entire restaurant and moved it upstairs. “Hey I'm gonna go check it out, I'll be back in a second okay?” 

You kneeled down in front of the box to the sound of his footsteps crunching in the fresh snow. You glanced up. As Sans walked through the doors you heard a ringing in your ears. You grabbed your head and grit your teeth. It was sharp. The kind of sound that would shatter glass. The kind of sound that would make your ears bleed. 

You could feel the black tar smearing against your fingers. You hunched over the box squeezing your eyes shut tight. 

The ringing stopped. 

You stayed still for a moment, hesitantly opening your eyes. You were staring down into the box. There was a single key at the bottom. You furrowed your brows. As you raised your head to look towards the Grillby's the ringing returned with a vengeance. Like a baby crying when you stopped paying attention to it. You swung your head back to the key. It ceased.

You took the key. 

The key in your hand the ringing began again, soft pitched like the sound of an old television. You turned back to the Grillby's and it quieted. You stood at the door and turned from side to side. It rang when you looked westward. It quieted towards the east. 

You walked past the ‘librarby’. The ringing became more insistent, turning your head even slightly made it screech, you kept your eyes trained on the house in front of you. 

You stepped towards the front door and the pitch exploded. It was piercing and loud, very very suddenly. You yelled out and covered your ears again. “WHAT?!” You yelled out to nowhere in particular. The piercing tone started beeping frantically. You stepped back from the door and looked to the woods behind the house. The ringing stopped. “Behind the house?” 

You ran your hand over the paneling along the side of the house. There was a hidden door behind it. The ringing pierced through you, you could feel it penetrating your skull. “Cut it out! I thought you were stopping when I followed your directions!” The ringing stopped, almost apologetically. You could feel the sorry in the air as you approached the door and pulled out the key. There was a buzz of excitement in your heart, right alongside the dread you felt.

The key fit into the door perfectly. 

The click of the lock opening seemed to echo throughout the clearing in the woods. You pushed it open slowly and stepped in. 

The lights flickered to life automatically, motion sensor probably.

You were... Uncomfortable. The room was practically sterile. It looked like a doctor's office. You did not much like doctor’s offices. 

What  _ was _ this place?

The countertop had a set of blueprints on its surface written in hieroglyphics that you could not understand. Your hands reached out instinctively. You checked over your shoulder as you stuffed them into your coat pocket. You didn't belong here. You felt like an intruder. 

_ *dont forget _

Forget what? The thought was not your own. You pulled open a drawer and found the picture frame. Sans and Papyrus were smiling at the camera in a happy family photo. There was a man behind them. 

Don't forget. 

You put it in your backpack.

The next drawer had an old security badge. The name was scratched out, but the security code was still legible. The profile photo ring a bell for you. Some... Bell. You pulled the photo back out and held it next to the card. The more you focused on the image of the man behind the skeletons the less you could see of him. You looked between the security card and what was left of his image in the photograph.

“Is this you?” You whispered softly. 

The noises rang in your head, the indecipherable ones that you couldn’t decipher. You felt compelled to address the elephant in the room. You ignored the tarp that covered an impending machine in the corner since you walked in. It gave you anxiety. You didn't like it. It made you feel scared. 

You reached your hand out and grabbed the sheet in a tight fist. You dug through your pocket and pulled out the blueprints you had swiped. 

You pulled the tarp off. 

Buttons, and numbers, and dead lights. Symbols, a glass chamber full of shards. 

_ Put it back _ . You thought. You dropped the blueprints at your side and pressed the activation button on the machine. It twitched and jerked to life, you could tell it hadn't been used in a very long time. You followed the motions like muscle memory. You flipped these switches, you twisted those knobs. You pulled this lever, you input that command. 

The shards in the chamber started swirling and flying, spinning in circles like a dizzying waltz the machine jumped, steam released through gaps and holes. It banged and clanked, a red light flashed and you jumped back throwing your arms up over your face. 

ERROR! ERROR! The monitor flashed, patronizing you. You slammed your fist down on the countertop behind you. You walked to the machine hesitantly again. What happened? The error log was written in hieroglyphics, you couldn't make heads or tails of it. You picked up the blueprints and help them up to the contraption. You couldn't understand it. What happened...?

“ _ Oy.” _ Bony hands wrapped tightly around your arm yanking you backwards and making you stumble. Sans pulled you past him putting himself between you and the machine. The light in his eyes were out. He was seething. “What the hell are you doing in here?” 

“Gaster told me to do it.”

“Bullshit.”

“He  _ did _ , Sans!” You curled your hands into fists. “He kept making me bleed if I didn't!” 

“Why would he want you in here?!”

You gestured widely towards the machine, making a grunt. The sound of an exclamation point following no words. 

“No.” He pushed you back towards the door. 

“Stop! Sans, he needs it!”

“What for?!”

“I don't know!” You spread your legs and dropped lower, making it harder to push you backwards. “But it might be the key to getting my body back!” 

“That's a leap.”

“What else do I have at this point?!” 

“Don't you know not to break into other people's houses?!” 

He pushes you out of the door, you stumbled back hitting a tree behind you. He stood in the door frame glaring at you. 

_ Put it back.  _

_ Put it back. Put it back, put it back put it backputitbackputitbackputitbackputitback– _

You ran forward scratching at him. He avoided it by a hair. Oh.  _ Now _ he was mad. 

A ring of light appeared in his left eye, he flicked his arm up and back down. You flew and fell back into the snow. He swung you at the trees. The black blood started streaming down your face from your nose leaving a striking contrast against the white snow. Your head was pounding. You slid down the tree and let yourself fall into the snow. You could hear Sans’ heavy breathing over you. 

What the hell was that? 

What did you just  _ do _ ...?

“...Hurts.” you mumbled into the snow.

“What?”

“It hurts. I constantly feel like I'm on fire. My eye feels like it's gonna fucking explode. Please. Sans.” Your voice cracked. “I don't even have control over my actions half the time. I don't know why I deserve this. I don't know what I did. I want him out of my body. I just wanna be me again.” Sans kneeled down next to you cautiously. You were shaking. “I wanna be me again.” 

Sans shifted uncomfortably and leaned over pulling your arm over his shoulder. He supported you as you stood. “Hey, let's just- let's just go inside, okay? You're exhausted. Let me just... let's get you cleaned up, we'll talk about it in the morning, okay?” He pulled a spare Grillby's napkin that was shoved in his pocket and dabbed the black blood off of your face. 

He had to carry you in after you fell asleep on his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hot damn two chapters in two consecutive days??! What a time to be alive !!!


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god damn three chapters in three days??? im on a fuckin ROLL

_ What the hell was that?  _ That wasn't how you usually acted. Sans knew for a fact that attacking him wasn't something you were apt to do. He buried his fists deeper into his pockets.

You were inside, sleeping on the couch. Sans had managed to wipe a good amount of the black blood off of your face, what dried on would have to be washed off in the morning. There was no way for him to have cleaned you up entirely without waking you. His brow bone pinched. He couldn't nessecarily say it  _ wasn't  _ Gaster's doing but he had never known him to be so impulsive. Gaster was strictly non combatant. But, for as far as he knew you, you were too.

That seems to be a continuous effect on the humans down here. Frisk was as much of a pasifist someone could possibly be. But they also were a vicious beast, ripping monsters apart and tracking their dust throughout the underground behind them. 

He remembered just how ruthless Frisk could become. Could this be the beginnings of the same for you?

He clenched his teeth. He had never been a particular optimist but even with the chorus of denial ringing through his head his stomach still clenched at the thought of finding Papyrus’ scarf half buried in the snow coated in dust. He tightened his fist in his pocket. 

He walked past the side of the house, back into the lab. The door was still open. He didn’t have time to close it after himself. God, what were you  _ thinking _ ?

He closed the door behind him as he crossed the threshold.

He hadn’t met Patience. Probably for the best too, she had died in the confines of the ruins. Toriel had asked him to take care of any human that may have passed through that door. He always had a feeling that the sadness in her voice was directly linked to Patience’s passing. 

He met Bravery. That was the first one he met. He was cautious, averse to humans by the time they had come through that door. He kept his distance, watched them from afar. They ended up dying before they even reached Snowdin. It was only after Bravery that he had started to get directly involved in the humans’ lives. None to the extent of Frisk, granted, but involved nonetheless. 

But had any of them gone quite to the extent that Frisk had? He had ran into a few of them a couple of times, but none of them seemed acutely aware of the saves and resets. He wasn’t even entirely sure that the resets of that time were caused by the humans. They all continued their lives completely unawares, like the monsters underground their memories were wiped clean. They relived meeting Sans over and over and over again with no recollection of how many times it had happened before that. A few of them had at least an inkling of deja vu, but none of the sharp memories that Frisk displayed. He wondered if you could save, too. 

He approached the impending machine you’d been playing around with before. He unlocked the chamber of shards and dug through his pockets. 

He extracted two tissues, both mostly black from the inky substance he had wiped off of your face. The one from earlier and the one from your visit to Asgore. He dropped them in and shut the chamber again. He’d probably have to drain the ink out before activating the machine again, miscellaneous things like tissues probably weren’t something that should be present when it finally worked. 

He laughed coldly to himself as he pulled the tarp back over the machine. He hadn’t even touched the thing in years, and now here he was hoping that it would  _ somehow _ work. For what? Because you had pressed some buttons? 

No. No, he knew why. 

There should have been no way for you to know how the machine worked at all, but you had run it so smoothly even if the process had failed. 

Could it be that Gaster was drawn to the other pieces of himself?

Perhaps Gaster wanted to be put back together again. 

Sans smiled bitterly. “Fat chance.” He whispered to no one in particular. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to fix you. Dicking around with this machine hasn’t worked for me before.” He let out a bark of a laugh as the tears started to slide down his face. You being the key to reviving his dead father? Mentor? Friend? Yeah right. SInce when has destiny ever worked out in his favor like that? 

He didn’t believe in good luck. He believed in statistics, he believed in math. He believed in numbers, in calculations, in science. Everything, even things without an explanation as of yet, had an explanation somewhere. It's just a matter of discovering it. 

He didn’t believe in fate or destiny. But this was... too much to ignore. They were being affected by Gaster, the evidence both physical and intangible. What are the odds that he, one of the only people with any refined memories of W.D. Gaster, would run into the (as far as he knew)  _ only _ human to be affected by him to such an extent. Slim. The odds were slim.

If Gaster truly  _ was _ after the pieces of him that Sans had collected in hopes that one day he could repair him then why did he latch onto you? It didn’t make sense. It boggled his mind and drove him mad, if he had hair he would be pulling it out. 

He remembered the way you lunged at him. Teeth bared, nails swiping like claws. Like a cornered animal retaliating in fear. It was so out of character for both you  _ and  _ him. Gaster was too calm and controlled for that. You were too friendly. Perhaps it was hysteria. Perhaps it was a third force at play.

He had never been a particular optimist. What were the odds that you were being controlled by two disembodied souls at one time? 

As the door of the lap slowly shut he watched the machine become enveloped in the darkness. He watched the stream of light from the outside slim to nothing. The room consumed in darkness.

He believed in statistics, he believed in math. He believed in numbers, in calculations, in science. Everything, even things without an explanation as of yet, had an explanation somewhere. Its just a matter of discovering it. 

He didn’t believe in fate or destiny. But somehow he knew the worst possible conclusion was the only one to be reached.


	17. Chapter 17

You woke up at a time. You didn’t know what time. You were underground, sun didn’t penetrate through the surface and your body clock was the only thing you could rely on here and now. You sat up.

Your hair was stuck to the side of your face, dried blood holding it like glue. You rubbed your cheek dusting some of it off. 

You looked around, where's the bathroom? You felt dirty. You needed to wash your face. Try the kitchen sink, maybe. You walked into the kitchen, spotting the looming sink too high for you to even  _ begin _ trying to scale you instantly turned and walked out. 

Why the hell was their sink so fucking  _ tall _ ? Like, what purpose does that even serve? It was too tall for you to get to so Sans wouldn’t have a chance, hell it might have been too high for Papyrus even. This is so irresponsible. 

You walked up the stairs. Papyrus’ room. Sans’ room. Did they seriously not have a  _ bathroom _ ? 

You picked up your pack as you left the house. You left the door open behind you, the cold wind hitting your face sobered you. You dug around through your supplies, picking out the washcloth from your med kit and a bottle of water. You dropped down, sitting on the front step with a loud  _ fwump _ . You wet the washcloth and scrubbed at your face blindly. 

You didn’t like this. You hiccuped dragging the cloth over your eyes. Your lids felt heavy. You grit your teeth leaning forward burying your face in your hands. You sobbed. 

You sobbed. You sobbed and sobbed. You sobbed for a long time. 

Did you do something in your past life? Were you being punished? 

How did this happen? 

A few months ago everything was  _ fine _ . The bakery was still open and you had your own place. It was fine. And now look at where you are. You jumped into a glorified pit on impulse like a fucking idiot. You decked the guy who was trying to help you. How were you even gonna  _ begin _ patching that up? Your hands clenched at fistfuls of hair. You fucked it up. You're a fucking idiot.

You let out a shout as you stood, throwing your pack at the trees. You chased after it  punching and kicking everything in your path. You dented the mailbox. You punched the bark of the pine trees. You yelled out again, you were seething. 

Why  _ you _ ? Why not someone else? Anyone else! What kind of cruel god was out there laughing at your expense? What kind of huge cosmic joke was this where you were played for the fool.

You punched the tree over and over and over again. Your fingers were bruised. Your knuckles were bleeding. The bark stung as it made contact with the open wounds trying to scab over, trying to keep your blood in. 

You didn’t want it in. 

You wanted it out, you wanted it gone. 

_ Get out of my body. Get out, get out, get OUT!  _

A bony hand clamped down around your wrist stopping you mid-swing. 

“Stop it.”

“No!” You tried to yank your hand away. His grip was like a vice. You never realized how strong he was. 

“You're gonna get hurt.” 

“I don't  _ care! _ ” 

“Well you should!” He barked. You jolted back, reluctantly submitting. “Look, we can figure this out okay?! Don't do anything rash, think about Frisk! Think about  _ me! _ You're not the one who would suffer if you died here!” 

You averted your gaze. You knew he was right. 

He slowly let your wrist go, your arm dropped to your side, you dug your nails into your palms and you could see the black ink splattered on the tree and dripped into the snow.

“I hate him.” 

“What?”

“I hate him.”

“...” Sans looked at you and sighed. He shrugged off his coat and dropped it on your shoulders. He wrapped his arm around you. “Yeah.” He said. “Yeah. Me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hry yall this work is officially part of a series, the second fic is gonna be about hadley and searyth because of what overwhelming love they recieved from all of you so subscribe to the series so you dont miss it
> 
> EDIT: hadleys story is out
> 
> EDIT 2: I wrote myself into a fucking wall like a god damn idiot id you have any ideas on what should happen next send them my way please my crops are dying


	18. Intermission: Hadley

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. I posted this as a separate fic in the paradox series but since this takes place in the ut universe but without any canon characters i could only tag the ocs here, and since its the second story in the series no one was subscribed to it so i decided to put it here as an intermission of a type so everyone who ASKED for a hadley fic gets to SEE a hadley fic
> 
> 2\. I wrote myself into a corner with the main story (reader and gaster) and ive been drafting ideas VIGOROUSLY because i dont wanna let you guys down . If you have any ideas or suggestions please for the love of god tell me i feel bad not updating when everyones been giving me such lovely comments and encouragements and all . This chapter being an "intermission" is just that, a filler until i can think of what comes next but i swear im working on it !!!!!
> 
> 3\. Anyway searyth is supposed to type with a bunch of emojis but apparently ao3 hates emojis so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> 4\. My blog is the-black--plague.tumblr.com if you wanna talk to me about this fic !!! This includes suggestions and edits or whatever . I really want an advisor to run my ideas by first basically because i don't wanna give you anything but my best !
> 
> 5\. Today is my last day of high school. Ideally this means ill have more time to write and update ?

Contrary to popular belief, the UnderNet _could_ connect to the SurfaceNet. Not easily, sure, but it was absolutely possible. There were areas underground that could pick up the reception that the SurfaceNet provided, long before the monsters were freed hundreds of humans had unknowingly engaged with them online.

Hadley met Searyth on a baking forum years prior, in his third year of college studying business. He knew what he wanted to do since high school, he had always had a touch for the culinary arts and a large distrust of adulthood so the next step was just obvious.

It couldn’t be a restaurant, too many people, he wasn't good with people. A café was the next idea, but he had an aversion to the hipsters that would be drawn to a local coffee shop like moths to a flame. A bakery seemed perfect. He liked baking, he _loved_ decorating.

His image didn't really fit into the bakery he built in his mind, gentle purples and pinks, baby blue macarons next to marbled jade doughnuts. He had a sharp gaze, was inexpressive, his voice monotone even if he was fighting against it. He was tall, _really_ tall, fit. In comparison to the welcoming bakery he imagined he stuck out like a sore thumb.

Searyth was a dedicated follower of his, she followed his blog liking and commenting on every photo he posted. Her typing style was cute.

_looks yummy !!!_

_post the recipe, please  !!! it looks so good i want to try it !!!_

Sometimes she'd just comment with a long string of emojis that may have made sense to her but not Hadley. It was hard trying to read emojis like hieroglyphics, especially when she'd throw a horse in between a cake and a police car. He didn't know what she was trying to express but there was a kind of warmness to her, that even when she commented [South Korean flag, horse, diamond, purple heart, praying hands, kimono] he knew she was trying to say something nice.

Hadley had approached her first. Surprisingly. He never approached anyone first, but she seemed a different type of introverted than he was. He opened her profile and sent her a message.

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _hey ( ⸝⸝•ᴗ•⸝⸝ )੭⁾⁾ i just wanted to say thanks for always supporting me! it makes me happy to get such nice comments on my work ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡)_

She replied instantly.

**_Wooly:_ ** _omg  your message surprised me um ... i love your work !!! your cakes are so pretty ! me and my friend like to try to copy your techniques together but they never come out the same_

Cute.

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _oh! Σ(･o･;) really?_

**_Wooly:_ ** _ah i'm sorry !!! is that bad ...?_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _no no no! that makes me really happy (/ω＼)_

**_Wooly:_ ** _i'm so relieved ! i was scared i offended you ...!_

Macaron Man sent an attachment.

**_Wooly:_ ** _whats this ?_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _a recipe ! i'm experimenting with it but i dont know what i think yet. maybe you and your friend want to try it out yourselves?_

She typed for a long time. Hadley's fists tensed. At odds with his appearance he was actually quite shy, it took a lot of nerve to approach this “Wooly” person in the first place. Unable to pry his attention away and focus on something else he sat in the dark room with his laptop sitting on his knees. He watched the ellipse's animation in the corner of his browser.

Was she typing an essay or what?

He drummed his fingers against the trackpad. Did he offend her somehow? Maybe she mistook his approach as flirting? Was she wary of the attachment because she thought it was a dick pic!? Oh god.

He moved his hands to the keyboard just falling into position when he heard the _ping_ of the messenger.

**_Wooly:_ ** _ok !!!_

Ah.

**_Wooly:_ ** _it looks yummy  i bet toriel will be excited too !!!_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _toriel? (゜o゜; is that your friends name?_

**_Wooly:_ ** _mmhm !!! i'm not a very good baker but your pictures are always so pretty i cant help but want to make them ...! toriel helps me !_

_Cute_.

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _oh! ( •̀ㅁ•́ )_

**_Wooly:_ ** _when were done how about i send you a picture  ?_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _yes! tell me what you think of the recipe ok?_

**_Wooly:_ ** _will do ! oh !!! my name is searyth by the way_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _hadley_

  
  
  


It was a regular exchange after that. It was charming, her encouragement. For a stranger online Searyth made an excellent taste tester. She always gave her honest opinion, put it as nice as possible but wouldn't sugar coat it. If she thought something was missing she would say so. If she didn't like the dish at all she would tell him as much. She always said it to sweetly, Hadley almost confused her critiques for praise on a number of occasions. It was so sweet, the way she presented her thoughts, that you might not actually pick up what she was trying to convey.

Hadley was never a religious man, but if angels did exist he knew there was one on the other side of his screen.

She seemed in tune to that, she was fast to clear up misunderstandings before they became such.

She was a great friend, even beyond their relationship as baker and pastry enthusiast.

When Hadley had panic attacks after midnight and his assigned roommate left the dorm to avoid having to deal with him Searyth was his anchor. His roommate didn't seem to like him much, and refused to ground him when the pressure of finals weighed down on him like the sins on his back. He had shelves packed tight with books about mindfulness and breathing exercises but nothing was able to pull him back to reality quite like Searyth’s comforting words and attentive ears. Free of physical witness he would text her, tears spilling over the keyboard, until he was too dehydrated to cry anymore. He’d fall asleep and when he woke up there were always two messages left for him: “ _drink some water when you wake up ok ??”_ and “ _sweet dreams hadley ”_

Even though she always suggested him taking a mental health day waking up to such a tender sentiment gave him just enough confidence to go to class.

  
  
  


His finals went well enough, like him his grades were not outstanding but good enough, he passed and that's all that really mattered.

Searyth seemed heartbroken to be unable to go to his graduation. She lived too far away, but he didn't fault her for it. He got his friend to take a video of him, decked out in his cap and gown, to send her. He spoke about how he couldn't have done it without her, if she wasn't there to support him he would have dropped out a long time ago. He thanked her.

And sure, _maybe_ he teared up just a little when talking to the camera, but if there was anyone he was comfortable with letting see him cry it was her.

**_Wooly:_ ** _im so happy you thought of me !!!! im so proud of you hadley ! i wish i was able to come …_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _its ok ( ´∀｀) even if you couldn't come you helped me so much… i dont think id be where i am today without your help_

**_Wooly:_ ** _!!! its no big deal  i wanted to make sure you could do what you want to ! I cant wait to meet you and get to try your sweets for myself_

  
  
  


He graduated at 23, major in business, minor in culinary arts. He worked small jobs for low pay, he couldn't start up a business when he already struggled to pay the rent. Cashier at a major supermarket chain where white gentrifiers asked for the manager daily, personal assistant to some politician prick who had a problem with wandering hands and a lingering gaze, waiter in a Red Lobster– so close to the kitchen and yet so, so far.

His mother always offered to help support him, just until he could manage it himself. He always refused. He wasn't from a rich family, he wanted that money to go to her.

It was during those late nights that Searyth would stay up with him, telling him that soon _, soon_ he would be able to build the bakery he's dreamed of for so long.

Even when she went to bed first Hadley would find himself up for hours staring at the water damaged ceiling, the thoughts of her silenced the rapid arguing in spanish from the home above.

Those nights, where he was kept up by the thought of her, were somehow some of his most peaceful. He woke up refreshed and there was this feeling in his gut that everything would end up fine.

  
  
  


Hadley was _not_ good at expressing himself. His face was like stone, a carved glare that perpetually read disdain even when he was at his happiest. That was one of the reasons he used so many emoticons when he typed. He knew _of_ the importance of expressions but simply couldn't use them. He used emoticons to compensate in a way.

In the same vein he wasn't good at understanding his own feelings either. No matter how fluid and fluctuating emotions could be he could only really identify them as generally good or generally bad. Mixed with his cold face and unapproachable body language he was not a sociable type.

His fourth job was in a small novelty shop, a tiny store sandwiched between a corner grocery and a takeout Chinese place. The store stocked wares he'd only ever seen online, books like _Scraps of Anxiety_ and the _Destroy this Journal_ and a notebook titled _A journal to write in when things get overwhelming and regardless of past performance I cannot find the confidence in myself to continue doing what I must in order to achieve the dreams I've been chasing for years…_ in increasingly shrinking text until he couldn't read it at all. It was a shop for hipsters and people who are hipsters ironically. When he told his big sister she laughed. “I thought you hated hipsters.”

He didn't, but people thought he did. People often confused his inability to make friends with a lack of desire to.

It was a small local business, everyone who worked for the company worked in this shop. Five people in total, split into groups so that two people are manning the shop during all business hours, the boss being the fifth. Ketziah worked weekends, she was a full time high school student during the week, Makeena worked short hours all week, her schedule was spontaneous and spent all of her free hours posting her nephews missing person posters all over the city, and Vivian who was the boss's younger brother. Hadley… had never actually _seen_ the boss. They were always locked away in the back room. Hadley worked the most hours and had never seen them during any of them. It was a telephone interview. He didn't actually know their name.

It was the worse half of winter when Vivian came up to him, when it was still snowing but the holiday cheer was long dead leaving the brown slush in the streets and the need to shovel out your car. February. Christmas cheer dying paving way for seasonal depression.

“Hey, Had.” On the other side of the counter Vivian rest his chin in the crook of his folded arms. He grinned lazily up at him. Viv was also a high schooler, a senior, a year above Ketziah but a year younger than her. It was hard for Hadley to tell whether he liked him or not. Vivian had this laid back aura to him that made him seem nice to everyone even the people he didn't like. The exact opposite of Hadley's problem.

Hadley flipped through a book he picked up off of the shelf, one of those adult coloring books for relaxation, except it was called the _50 Hotties Coloring Book_. Every one of the “hotties” looked more or less the same, and at least 20 of them were named Chris. He raised his eyebrows and flicked his eyes up to meet Vivian's. “Hm?”

“You got a girlfriend?”

“No.” He looked back down at the coloring book at the eighth Chris in a row.

“Aw, come on. You can tell me.” He pushed himself up bending over the counter pushing his face closer to Hadley's. “You got a crush. Right? You got a crush.”

Hadley instinctively recoiled. “I never really… thought about it.”

“Ha-ha, Had.” Vivian laughed without humor before leaning closer. Their noses were practically touching and Vivian was wiggling his eyebrows fast enough to conduct electricity. “Come on, you can't get it past me! Why don't you open up and tell big brother Vivian what's the matter.”

“I am six years older than you.” Vivian's grin split and Hadley's cheeks warmed just a little, just enough. His face got red and that was all Vivian needed to know.

  
  
  


**_Macaron Man:_ ** _hey… if we ever meet do you maybe wanna… go on a date? (#・・#)_

**_Wooly:_ ** _o-oh…!  Id love to!_

 

 

Yeah. He had a crush.

  
  


 

He moved out of his childhood home when he was 24. His mother was accommodating, after college they never insisted he move out or made him pay any rent, it was the guilt that eventually made him leave. His family was far from wealthy, in fact they have teetered on the brink of poverty ever since his father passed away when he was a child. He went to a local college, an hour from his home and he still decided to stay in a dorm to take any economic burden off of his mother from being in that house. His sister had teamed up with him, sending money from time to time for him to pay for whatever he could. Of course Isabella and her husband weren't by any means rich either, Isa being a public defender and her husband being faceless in the corporate heard. Ever since they were children Hadley and Isa agreed that when they grew up they were gonna buy mom a big house.

They hadn't quite saw that dream through just yet. Right now they did what they could to offer support to their mother and each other.

There had been a long line if men before she married Severin Meeuwsen, people who wanted to earn their money and keep it in their grubby little hands. Severin was more than ready to offer some of his paycheck to their mother. And that was the defining factor, that was the sign that said that this man was meant to be her husband.

Though she never could pronounce his last name correctly, no matter how long he'd tried to teach her and how hard she'd tried. At the end of the day she was Isabella Castilla-Meeuwsen on paper, but Isabella Castilla to the sentient world.

Isabella helped him to move out, while she couldn't afford to send money to mom AND help him rent an apartment she and Severin offered him a bed in their own apartment.

He said no twice and then yes. Isabella knew how he worked. One no one yes for food, two no’s one yes for all other major decisions.

They helped him move in, Isabella spoke to him as if she hadn't seen him in years. Hadley knew she was probably just happy to be able to speak in Spanish at home again. He and Severin made civil small talk as they helped him move his things into the spare bedroom, he was a kind man. He loved Isa a lot, Hadley could still see the way his eyes lit up when he saw her. He was happy for her. If anyone deserved such a loving and caring husband it was her.

When they left him to his own devices the first and only thing Hadley pulled out from the cardboard moving boxes was his laptop. Now that Severin and Isa we're somewhere else he could really take in the room. It was small, but he couldn't be picky. They had designed it to be a nursery, some remnants of that long gone dream remained. The glowing star stickies on the ceiling, the hook where the mobile should have hung, the pastel pale yellow walls, and a doorknob with no lock. Electrical outlets were covered by plastic plugs and the carpet was a kushy thing, something a baby couldn't get hurt on if it fell.

The room had been empty for months, he knew. He remembered the way Isa had cried and cried when they got the news, the way Severin got choked up himself but did his damndest to put in a strong face to comfort her. Isa went into a slump of depression after that, not letting anyone into the nursery. That was why Hadley was so surprised by her offer for him to move in where her baby was _supposed_ to be.

(When Isa went out to meet her friend Dina for lunch Severin explained it to him; he woke up in the middle of the night and she wasn't in bed. When he went looking for her he found her sitting in the nursery staring at the crib. The next morning they went to work deconstructing the nursery without a word.)

Hadley felt weird being in this room.

He untangled his laptop power cord from the ball of other miscellaneous wires he didn't recognize and crawled to the outlet pulling out the plastic placeholder and throwing it across the room behind him. He plugged in his laptop and crawled back to where it sat open on the floor. The lights were off, the curtains drawn, the only source of light in the room other than the blue glow of his screen imprinting his shadow onto the wall behind him was the light from the hallway that peaked in from the crack below the door.

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _i finished moving ヽ(^o^)丿_

**_Wooly:_ ** _i didnt know you were moving !_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _yeah… (^^ゞ it was a bit of an impulsive move ¯\\_(^_^’)_/¯ i didnt wanna be a burden on my mom but now im worried im gonna be a burden on my sister (;_;_

**_Wooly:_ ** _no way !!!  you couldnt possibly be a burden!_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _i hope youre right Σ(´∀｀；)_

**_Wooly:_ ** _i am_

**_Wooly:_ ** _now ! Tell me all about your new house !_

 

 

His sister's apartment was the only apartment above a photo studio downstairs, professional photography and editing, graduation pictures, wedding photos, family portraits. The owner of the company downstairs owned the building, his sister paying him rent for the apartment up here. It wasn't the cheapest or biggest place, but the peace that came with having no neighbors justified the price in Hadley's eyes.

 

 

When Hadley was 25 Severin and Isa sat him down. He was expecting the “it's time to move out” conversation that he never got from his mother but he couldn't have been farther from the truth.

“Had, we've been letting you live here for free. And it's been great! I'm so glad I'm able to spend so much time with my cute baby brother again.” Isa reached over the table and pinched his cheek the way she used to when she picked on him as children. “But we're gonna need you to buy this place from us.”

“B-buy…?” He expected that he would have to start paying _rent._ The whole point of letting him stay here for free was the fact that he couldn't afford to buy a place himself.

“We're planning on moving out.” Severin piped up, lacing his fingers through Isa’s.

“This place is a bit too small for four.” Isabella was grinning. She exuded a radiant joy that Hadley could never mimic.

“Four…?” Hadley looked down at her stomach and then back up, Isa pressed her lips together trying to hold back a smile red lips eventually splitting to pearly teeth as she nodded her head rapidly.

“No way, I’m so happy for you!” Hadley jumped up and wrapped his arms around her pulling her into a tight hug. Isabella choked out a sobbing laugh as the tears pooling up in her eyes finally started to spill over. She wiped her eyes through their hug. He couldn't even imagine how excited and scared she must have been. She and Severin hadn't tried for a baby in 6 years, too afraid to relive that tragedy a second time. But she was so happy now that you could almost forget how scared she truly was.

Hadley laughed with her, he pulled his head back and pressed his forehead against hers his hands coming up to cup her face. He couldn't remember the last time he smiled like this. “Isa, I’m so happy for you.”

 

 

It was six months later when she and Severin finally moved out, they found a lovely house in a suburban area a LONG train ride away. Isa's stomach had swelled and Hadley played the role of deconstruction, mover, and decorator. He did all the heavy lifting and Severin had to more or less completely restrain Isabella to stop her from helping. She hated sitting by as someone else did work for her. Usually Hadley and Severin would let her help, encourage it even, she was twice as strong as them with four times stamina, but her kid seriously looked like he was gonna come out ready to start middle school. He was huge. It was very likely that she would have to have a premature C-section. Apparently the baby got his grandma's height genes that Isabella was so cruelly robbed of.

When they were settled in and Hadley stood in _his_ apartment he realized how big it was. How little stuff he actually owned. He didn't even know how to fill out all the extra space.

 

 

The owner of the photo studio downstairs passed away. His daughter, with no intention of continuing that business, sold the space. On an impulse Hadley bought it from her.

On an impulse Hadley opened his own bakery.

 

 

**_Wooly:_ ** _im so happy for you !!!_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _im so glad ＼(^o^)／  i was almost getting worried that id never make it this far (_ _;)_

**_Wooly:_ ** _i knew you could do it !!!  i told you ! I wish i could come …_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _you will (*´ω｀*) im certain of it(^^♪ i couldn't have made it this far without you ♡_

**_Wooly:_ ** _oh please ! you did all the hard work !!!_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _but you encouraged me to do all of it (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧ im so glad i met youヾ(｡ >v<｡)ﾉﾞ_

**_Wooly:_ ** _im glad too … you changed me as a person, did you know that ?  im sure im the luckiest person in the world_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _not as lucky as me though (*^_^*)_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _thank you so much for everything searyth_

 

 

The barrier broke when he was 26. Mid September during one of the most memorable sunsets of his life. He was one of the first people to learn about it.

**_Wooly:_ ** _can we meet ?_

**_Macaron Man:_ ** _of course (*´∀｀) when?_

**_Wooly:_ ** _right now_

  
  
  


They sat together on a cliff at the base of Mount Ebott. Hadley's legs swung below him dangling over the sheer drop to the woods below, Searyths were neatly tucked under her. She sat farther away from the cliff's edge, scared of heights, she said. They sat next to each other, close enough to feel the heat from.the others body but not quite touching.

“Heaven knows what you think of me now.” Her voice was quiet. Melodic and lovely, Hadley fell even deeper.

Hadley, never one for words, splayed his hand out over the stone they sat on, inching it closer to hers. He wove his pinky between her own, a ghost of the hand holding he'd always imagined. He always overestimated himself like that. He’s not the person he is online, not as confident, not as self assured. When he imagined their meeting he was expecting luggage being dropped in an airport terminal, running into his arms, taking him into a full body hug.

He expected a human.  

Searyth looked at their hands and laced more of their fingers together. His hands were rough and calloused, just as she imagined. There were scars, old and new, from knicks of the knife or getting his hand stuck in the beater. His marred calloused perfectly imperfect hands woven deep into the fur between her fingers.

Hadley sighed deeply and turned to face her, he turned his palm over taking her hand into his, rubbing her knuckles with his thumb. As he looked into her amber eyes he realized that she was so much more beautiful than the human girl he had imagined her as. That girl was a stock character, a figment made to put a face to the name. It was easier to fall in love with a face. But now that character shattered, her freckled skin shattered like porcelain, her bouncy red hair turns into the plastic strands of a Halloween store wig. She didn't speak in emojis and she wasn't Searyth any more.

Searyth was in front of him. White wooly fur with curling horns growing from her forehead. Searyth was an adorable black tipped nose and snow white wool. Searyth was wearing a yellow sun dress.

Hadley put his left hand gently on her cheek. His eyes flicked between her golds, “Searyth, can I kiss you?”

Hadley had never seen a sheep blush.

She looked down, up at him through her lashes, the essence of demure. She nodded slightly, squeezed her eyes shut tight as he leaned in towards her.

She was stiff under him, as if she didn't know what to do. He ran the pad of his thumb over her knuckles, the other rubbed her cheekbone soothingly as he pressed his lips to hers. He felt her tension lessen. As she leaned into the kiss as well. Her free hand rest on top of his on her face.

Hadley pulled away first.

He rest his forehead against hers, and looked into her eyes. “I think I love you.”

“I think I love you, too.”


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote this at 2:51 am. Its short but hey its something lmao

_ The ringing in your ears, piercing, protruding, you could feel it vibrating behind your eyes. You tried to cover your ears but your hands were not your own. Holes in your palms blocked out no noise. You raked your fingers down your face, it was not skin. It feet hard, like a mask. Whose face was this?  _

_ You tried to scream, you could feel your heart pounding in your chest. You felt like you were suffocating, tighter, tighter– _

You did not wake up in Sans’ home.

You could see the light through your eyelids before you opened your eyes, it enveloped you a stark contrast of blues and reds reflecting off of your skin. You squint as you look around you like it hurts your eyes. 

The floor below you is cold, metal. The air is crisp and chilly, the atmosphere maintained at a careful 60 degrees. Uncomfortable for you in your hiking clothes, but good for the machinery that surrounded you. Perhaps this temperature is fine for monsters, but you could tell that the computers got first priority. 

You pushed yourself up on your elbows before sitting up entirely. You pressed your palm against the cool floor to assist you to stand. Your knuckles had scabbed over. 

“Oh, you're up. Good thing, you were tossing and turning. I wasn't sure if I should wake you or not.

You were getting used to Sans sneaking up on you like that. 

“Where are we?”

“The core.”

“The  _ what _ .”

“I explained it on the way here, remember?”

“What? No.” You stood up to your full height hearing your back pop as you straightened your spine. Every bone in your body was in need of a good cracking right about now. “We we're outside of your house.”

“Uh.” Sans’ eyes flicked away then back to yours, his left brow bone creased in confusion. “Yeah, like, three days ago.”

“ _ Whom. _ ”

“Yeah, remember? You were punching that tree and then you went to sleep and when you woke up you said Gaster wanted to go to the core? Said that we could find a piece of him here? Is none of this ringing a bell?” He laughed nervously. You could tell he was waiting on that psyche. Waiting for you to tell him that you remembered and that you were just fucking with him at the single most inopportune time.

“Sans, I never said that.”

The pinpricks of light went out in his eyes as he turned his head away. A bead if sweat formed on his forehead. 

It was silent, the void filled only by the dim humming of the machines around you. Listening to them you realized just how loud they truly were. It was so easy to get lost in thought here, you filtered out such miniscule details without even realizing.

“Come on.” He looked back at you and took your hand dragging you along a maze of identical corridors. He was pulling you along behind him, this close you could see just how tense his shoulders had become. You knew you two had the same thought though neither of you wanted to be the first to say it out loud. 

He pulled you past an elevator and through an exit, across a bridge and into a fancy hotel. The fountain was broken. 

He pulled a key card from his pocket unlocking the first door you two came across. All of your stuff you brought was here on the king bed, you had left them next to the couch when you went to bed. 

Three days travel, this was your new base of operations then? You sat at the foot of the bed and watched Sans pace the room before you, his phalanges curled into a fist in front of his mouth watching the ground as he walked. 

“You don't remember coming here? At all?”

“I wouldn't joke about this.”

“No, you're- no, you're right. Where have you been?”

“I was on your couch, then I went to sleep, and I woke up here. Gaster dream.”

Sans bit down on the second knuckle of his index finger. Not good. Not good at all. 

You sighed. “Sans, can we just say it? Pretending won't make it go away.”

Sans’ jaw clenched. He wasn't looking at you.”This could change everything. There's so many unknown variables, if he can put you into a prolonged sleep and control your body in that time that...”

“Keep an eye on me. Don't let me go out alone in the middle of the night.”

“I have to sleep too. There's only two of us, there's always time that will be unaccounted for.”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“...” He balled his fists at his sides. 

Your body wasn't yours when you slept anymore. What was he after?


	20. Chapter 20

If you wanted to get into the technical aspects of it, Gaster could take your body whenever he wanted. His grasp on you grew stronger as you continued to host him, he had very few actual restrictions.

He didn't take full advantage of it because as far as he was concerned you were allies. 

Sure he had made your life more... Complicated. But you both had the same end goal. To take his soul and put it somewhere else. To resurrect him in a less morally grey, less necromancy kind of way. It wasn't exactly resurrection, his body was far beyond recoverable. Being shattered across space and time will do that. While it would be technically  _ possible _ to recover all of his body it would require a host who could hop between timelines. Someone like Frisk. Someone like Sans. 

When he first saw Frisk through Sans’ eyes he had considered moving to their body– Sans was a good host but sometimes the best way to find somebody is when you don't know where to look for them. But that body already had two souls, an adopted prince and a fallen child. Three's a crowd. 

He didn't take full control himself because the last thing he needed was for you to think he was malicious. He didn't want to scare you off. Going down in the lab would probably handle that on its own. 

You weren't too happy knowing that he was controlling your body in your sleep, but it was the lesser of two evils, a sacrifice he was willing to make. 

Plus clearly the symbolism in your cryptic nightmares wasn't getting you anywhere.

His soul existing alongside yours, he could physically feel the way you shut him out after the core incident. Okay, so that had been a miscalculation on his part. He needed you to trust him, his entire plan depended on it. 

You woke up, tension melted away when you realized you were exactly where you went to sleep. You rolled onto your side. 

“Ow-!” You quickly hopped up as a pain ran up your forearm. You twisted your arm in a bizarre angle to try to find the source of the attack. There was just a short black line below your elbow, you looked back down at your bed and saw the uncapped black pen responsible for your new battle scar. You rubbed at the line trying to wipe the ink away. You picked up the pen and looked at it. It was black, in gold letters were written  _ MTT Resort _ . You put the cap back on the pen and turned to put it back on your nightstand. On your nightstand was the matching notepad. 

It was full.

You picked it up, flipping through marked up page to marked up page. This was no language you knew. This wasn't even an alphabet you recognized. It barely resembled an alphabet at all. Were these pictograms? You furrowed your brows at the paper. Who the hell wrote in pictograms? That wasn't normal. It just wasn't. 

You stood up fully, closing the pad to its first page. It looked like about 25 pages had been ripped out already. You had to find Sans.

Sans wasn't hard to find. For a resort this place sure wasn't very... Resort-y. He was in the hotel restaurant. It was a weirdly romantic setting, a stark juxtaposition from the bright colors in the lobby. The stage was dimly lit like some sort of jazz club. Sullen piano continued to play even as empty as it was. 

Sans was in the far back at a table drinking ketchup straight from the bottle like some kind of heathen. It was practically obscene. You tried to look pointedly at the notepad, really not ready to deal with  _ that _ shit right now.

“Hey.”

“Mornin’.” He raised his head to acknowledge you. “What’cha got there?” 

You pulled out the chair across from him and sat with a huff, the chair scraped across the floor with the force of your weight. You put the notepad on the table between you. 

“What's this?” He asked. 

“I was hoping you'd know.” You replied.

He took the pad and flipped through the pages. He shook his head. “No.”

“I can't read it, I thought maybe you could if you didn't write yourself.” 

“I mean... I  _ could _ read it. It might take a minute, I haven't had to read this since the accident, but I could definitely read it. Where'd you find this?” 

“It was on my nightstand. The pen was in my bed. I was really hoping you wrote it.” You rubbed the back of your neck sheepishly.

“Well, there's a bright side. If Gaster  _ did  _ write it then we know he's willing to work  _ with  _ us right? Having a definite way to communicate with him has gotta help.”

“And yet he doesn't try to communicate in a language we know.”

“Well, no,” Sans took the pen from your hand and flipped to a blank page to start taking notes. He copied repeating symbols on one side and made tally marks on the other. “When he was the royal scientist he took all his notes this way. He probably thought that it'd work since I always had to read them.” His voice dropped as he rubbed the back of his head. “But it  _ has _ been a while...”

“What about writing him back? We don't know how aware he is or if he can see whats going on while I'm awake.”

“He can read our language. He just can't write it.”

“That's kind of irritating.” 

“Tell me about it.”

He scratched the back of his head. “This could take a while to decode though. If I had something to compare to then maybe, but Asgore rounded up all his files after his accident.”

“Maybe he still has them.”

“Asgore?” 

“Yeah. In his office maybe he has them tucked away somewhere.” You paused. “Come to think of it I couldn't understand those papers he was looking at when we first met. Could that be one?”

“Maybe. If I could find a report that I already know it'll probably make figuring out each letter easier. I'm sure he'd let us borrow it if we explained why.” 

You stood from your chair and stretched your arms above your head relishing in the  _ pop  _ of your spine. “Then let's go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, every time i update: ill try to update more frequently!!!!!!!!!  
> me: *does this shit*


	21. Chapter 21

You returned home to an accusatory finger shoved in your face. Your eyes focused around the claw onto the sneering fish face in front of you. You never realized how sharp Undynes teeth were.

“You have been gone for TWO. WEEKS. Do you even know how worried we were about you?!” Alphys puffed out her chest from behind her girlfriend with an indignant furrow of her eyebrows. You really didn't think now was the time to say she was too cute to be scary. “You just up and disappeared! No note, no nothing! We started printing out missing person posters! Where  _ were _ you?!”

You scratched the back of your neck, trapped between the door and Undyne’s unnervingly sharp nails. “I disassociated my way into Mt. Ebbot.”

“What.” 

“Yeah, like,” You pushed yourself off of the door and stood there. “Sometimes my soul just kind of leaves my body? And then I was climbing a mountain like 'yeah this is a logically sound plan.’ You know?” You scratched your neck again. It really wasn't your best laid plan.

Undynes eyebrow twitched. She held eye contact with you for a minute before throwing her hands up. “Fine! But at least tell us next time! Frisk wanted to see you and they went to Sans who went to Grillby who mentioned to Toriel that you hadn't been there in a while, and  _ she _ went to Searyth who spoke to Hadley who called us and it was all a huge mess!” She waved the stack of missing person posters in your face to emphasize her point. 

“My bad.” 

You listened to them complain until they tired themselves out before slipping away to your room. Sans called Asgore, you two were gonna see him in the morning, but first you absolutely deserved a good night's sleep in your own bed.

Maybe you  _ should _ have left a note. 'Hey I'm jumping into a fucking hole, see you when I see you!’

Well, you could work out the contents of the letter later.

 

You and Sans went to meet Asgore on Saturday. You felt bad about dragging him to school on one of his precious few days off but he assured you, multiple times, that it was no sweat. Such an urgent matter deserved his undivided attention, something he couldn't give when he had to worry about children interrupting them.

He met you at the door and allowed you inside his office, despite it being a weekend he looked down the hallway to make sure there were no prying eyes before locking his office door. 

“Gaster actually spoke to you?” Asgore asked as he placed a manilla folder of pictogram documents on the table between you and Sans. Sans immediately pulled it towards himself and shuffled through the papers with a focus you never associated with him. He always seemed like he knew more than he let on but theorizing about it and seeing it in action were two very different experiences. 

“Something like that.” You thanked him as he put a cup of tea in front of you and sat in the third chair. “He wrote a note in my sleep. I'm not too sure how I feel about that,” you clenched and unclenched your fist, “but at least we're communicating.”

Asgore nodded as he took a sip from his cup. The china was practically engulfed by his huge hands. Sans’ eyes darted over the reports and the note. 

You pressed your lips together in the silence. “What does it mean to just cease to exist?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean once something exists it can't just not exist. You and I exist, and, like, Abraham Lincoln existed. Even though he's not alive he still exists. You know? He's real, a character in a game doesn't though. They never existed, but once something exists it can't just cease to exist. The fact that he's with me and that you both remember him means that he existed, and exists.”

“Schrodinger's scientist.” Sans joked without looking up from his work. “Both exists and doesn't.” 

“What.”

“Imagine it this way: he's shattered across time and space, different timelines with different existences. Now imagine that two of those timelines are fusing, only the people from the original timeline remember him and the people from the other timeline don't. Gaster both exists and doesn't, even though  _ we _ can remember him he didn't exist to all of us.”

“So we're merging time and space?”

“Maybe?” Sans finally looked up ad you and scratched his jaw. “It’s just a working theory at this point. It's hard to say definitively, I suppose to find out for sure we'd need a way to move between timelines and I'd rather not drag the kid into this.”

“The kid?”

“It's nothing. Don't worry about it.”

Well, now you  _ had _ to worry about it.

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

* * *

 

When you opened your eyes you weren't in the chair anymore. You were curled up on the velvet couch with Sans’ coat draped over you. You must have fallen asleep. You pushed yourself up onto your elbows rubbing your eyes with a fist. You could hear Asgore and Sans talking in hushed tones just outside the room but couldn't hear what they were saying.

You swung your legs over the side if the couch and pushed yourself onto your feet, groggily dragging your feet towards the desk. Two pages ripped from the notepad were on the table next to the page of pictograms. You picked up the pages and flipped through them, was this the translation? He must have finished it while you were asleep. It was full of scientific jargon to the point that it bordered convoluted, in your sleepy state your mind could only process a few words:  _ machine, shards, search, rebuild _ ... Something about finding the shattered fragments of his existence to rebuild him.

Well, you could ask him when he came back.


	22. Chapter 22

“You want me to do  _ what _ .” 

“Well, I mean, you wouldn't be doing it alone.”

“That is  _ not  _ the problem, Sans.”

“I don't know what to tell ya, pal.”

“Sans, you want to travel through  _ time _ . Not even forward or backward! You want us to travel, like, left and right! Through time!”

“It's what Gaster said to do.”

“ _ How?!” _

This was officially ridiculous. You thought you'd crossed that line a good while ago but nope. Now you have to travel through time.  _ Try to free the disembodied soul that decided to live in your body like a parasite! This can only go well! _

Sans tapped a finger against Asgore’s desk, resting his chin in his palm.

“There  _ is _ a way. But I really don't wanna drag the kid into this.” 

Gaster told you to”find him”. To find his the fragments that had been shattered across time and space. Did he even realize what a ridiculously tall order that was? Sans assured you that he could handle space, something you'd kind of been suspecting with all the shortcuts and teleporting and fucking who knows what else. But time? That was apparently out of his control.  _ That _ was where he drew the line apparently.

“Look.” He gently wrapped his phalanges around your bicep and lead you to the couch. “Everyone has a certain amount of control over time and space. Like, whenever you walk around you're manipulating space to get from one point to another. And I suppose we're all constantly traveling through time at different rates based on speed and... But some people have more control over it than others. Theoretically, we should be able to find all the fragments on this plane, the problem is the ones that are in a different timeline. Frisk can control timelines, so can Chara, but I don't want to pull them into this, you know?”

“I... Guess. But then how are we gonna get to these different timelines if we can't involve them?” 

“There  _ is _ another person who can manipulate the timelines but I don't think he'd jump at the opportunity to help us.” 

“Who?”

“Flowey.”

“Ah.” You sat in silence for a short while, each of you looking at your respective walls to avoid making eye contact with each other. You suddenly perked up, giving a tentative glance to Sans. “Um...”

He grunted, looking at you. If he had eyebrows one would be quirked in a question.

“Now just humor me here for a second, okay? What if... Maybe, just maybe, we got Papyrus to convince him?”

“No.” His answer was instant and absolute. 

“No, I get it I really do, but all I'm saying is that he seems to care about Flowey quite a bit and maybe Flowey feels the same? If he won't listen to  _ us _ , right?”

“Rejected.”

“Sans, please. I don't want this guy in my head anymore and if the only way to get him out is to transverse timelines...”

“ _ No _ . End of discussion.”

“Would Papyrus even be in danger?! All he'd be doing is asking for us, right? What's the problem?”

“The  _ problem _ is that Pap is too  _ nice _ . Flowey has manipulated him before because he doesn't know how to say no, and any association between them is potentially dangerous is why!”

“Do you want Gaster back in one piece or not?!” 

“...” He flinched, returning to look at his wall. “...I do. Of course I do. And I know Papyrus does too.”

“If he does too then we should let  _ him  _ make his choice.”

Sans clenched his hands and buried his fists into the pocket of his coat. The light vanished from his eyes. Dammit. He knew you were right after all. But Flowey was... Flowey. Flowey was  _ bad _ . Flowey had manipulated Papyrus, taken advantage of his naivete time and time again. Flowey did all those things, all those  _ awful _ things to Frisk over his repressed feelings towards Chara. Of course he cared about Frisk, but if he had to choose between involving them or Papyrus? He'd choose them in a heartbeat. He remembered what it was like, Chara on the loose with Papyrus a pile of dust in the snow. He'd trust Frisk with his life, but the fact of the matter is that Chara is  _ still _ a part of them. He and Undyne were the major pillars that stood against them but Undyne didn't retain those memories the way he did. For the two of you to go timeline hopping alone meant leaving them here. Alone. And if Frisk couldn't keep them under control...

“We need to do  _ something _ , Sans.”

He knew you were right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will they recruit frisk or papyrus?! Who knows?!!!   
> More importantly do yall think i should keep this story in thr timelines in canon or should i throw in the au timelines like underfell/underswap/etc


	23. Chapter 23

“Oh, I didn't realize you knew Flowey!” 

Sans was  _ not  _ happy about this. Maybe he should have been more assertive with you? Of course he didn't want to involve Frisk in this, he loved them like they were his own child, but Papyrus? Papyrus was something different. He loved Frisk, but he killed them dozens and dozens of times to avenge his brother. Even after that whole ordeal ended he humored the idea of killing them the moment they emerged from the ruins. To protect Papyrus, to protect  _ everyone _ from the monster he knew they could become. Of course he knew it wasn't Frisk’s doing, it was Chara who latched onto their soul like a parasite. 

In a way, the two of you were rather similar in that regard.

But regardless of logically knowing it himself he couldn't help the pearl of distrust, resentment,  _ fear _ , that formed in his chest.

“We've... met.” You say cautiously. “Not for a long time, but I saw your letters and things to him and I was wondering what kind of person he is?” 

“Oh, Flowey! He's a good friend, we're very close! I was sad that he couldn't leave the underground with us but I can always drop some letters into Mt. Ebbott for him to read, even if he can't send me any in response. Let's see... He's angry, kind of like a wet cat! He yells a lot but I know he really cares. I'm the president of the Flowey fanclub, you know?” He puffed out his chest in pride.

“Wow!” You said and he beamed. “Hey, could you do us a huge favor?” 

“Of course! Anything for you, my dear friend!”

“I need you to ask Flowey for a favor. I need to travel to another timeline.” Papyrus’ face fell. “I-I’ll be back though, don't worry!” He regained some of the pep in his step. 

“Well, sure! I don't see why not, it'll be nice to visit Flowey face to face again! Why do you need to do time stuff?”

“It's...” You looked to Sans for help, but you aren't telepathic and all you got was a sympathetic look in return. “It's a surprise! There was this limited edition thing I saw but it was sold out by the time I got to the store. It's, um, a gift. So I can't tell you what it is.” You raised a finger to your lips like you were telling a toddler a secret. Papyrus mimicked the motion subconsciously.

“Alright! I'd be happy to help you in this noble venture!” He put a hand on your head, patting you like a dog. “I'm so excited to see my friend Flowey again! When should we go? Today? Tomorrow?” 

You gently moved his hand from your head and squeezed his in yours. 

“There's no time like the present!” “Tomorrow.” You and Sans spoke at the same time. You looked back at him.

“We promised that we'd babysit Frisk today.” He smoothly explained.

“Ah.” You said. “A-ah, that's right. I forgot.” You scratched the back of your neck. “Besides, you should get ready to go and see Flowey again right? Put on some cologne, style your hair, get a nice outfit ready. Spa day.”

Papyrus nodded, running a hand over his very bald head. “I was wondering if I should try a new style sometime soon. I bet Flowey would be happy to be the first to see it!” He nodded vigorously as he spoke holding a fist to his chin like he was deep in thought. “Yes! I'll make sure to get a full night of sleep tonight! I'll wear my coolest outfit I own.” 

“Good on you buddy.” Sans reached up and pat his face gently. “Now, we gotta go pick up Frisk.”

Papyrus nodded and turned skipping away to his room to put together his ‘coolest outfit’. 

Sans lead you out of the house and when the door shut behind you you turned to him. “What are we doing?” 

“We should talk to Asgore about this. He knows Flowey, he knows the risks and everything. We can't go in blindly, you know?”

You nodded. He had a point. Given the magnitude of your situation it would be best to be as prepared as possible. 

You walked towards the school in silence.

“You nervous?” He asked after ten minutes of discreetly watching you fidget. 

“Terrified.” You laughed. Your entire world had been flipped upside down since Gaster showed up. Was it really time to expel him from your soul? Would your life finally go back to normal? It almost sounded too good to be true. “Um, about these timelines...”

“Don't worry about them. I'll keep an eye out for you, okay?”

You pressed your lips together and nodded. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "The next chapter will be longer" i lie lyingly because in a liar  
> No really though the next chapter has a scene ive been excited to write for a while now so look forward to it

**Author's Note:**

> My first x reader fic !! Its pretty self indulgent because I just really want to have good platonic relationships with everyone. But it'll be fun to write. Also it's not being betad or edited by anyone right now so if you spot a mistake please tell me !  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hadley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11151726) by [Arlatius (Xratis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xratis/pseuds/Arlatius)




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